The Pony Who Lived Upstairs
by Ringcaat
Summary: What would you do if a pony moved in upstairs? Would you go out of your way to meet her? What would you talk about? And what kind of pony would choose to leave Equestria for Earth in the first place?
1. The Pony Upstairs

Four years in Elizabeth, New Jersey, three of them in the same building, and I never made an effort to meet my neighbors, except a few people on my floor, and only then because we saw each other in the hall. Sometimes I feel guilty. Lots of Latinos, at least three black families, a guy from Poland... I could have gone and introduced myself to any of them, and who knows what I would have learned? Sometimes I'd wonder if I was bigoted, but usually I'd tell myself, no. I'm just shy.

Yet when she moved in, surprise—I went out of my way to meet her. What does that say about me? That I'll seek out and appreciate diversity, but only if it's a kind that appeals to my senses? Only if it's beautiful? I felt guilty about it, but there was no question—I just had to meet the pony who lived upstairs.

Do people ever really make cakes and cookies for their new neighbors, like you see on TV? All I know is, no one's ever done it for me. We got a flan once in the week before Christmas back when I was engaged in Hoboken, but we'd been there almost a year and the neighbor who brought it already knew us. So I figured, well, maybe it's one of those things people don't really do, but I've got to do it. I went online, found a recipe for pineapple upside-down cake, and tried my best. The cake came out too thick, so I ate it myself, went back to the store and made another. It ate up pretty much my whole Sunday, but really, you can't complain when you're learning.

I wrapped it in foil, went up to room 412, and clapped the knocker. _Clop, clo-clop, clop!_

I heard a not too different sound from inside. There was a pause before the voice, tempered and full, but anxious: "Who's there?"

Though I'd expected to be talking face to face, I did my best through the door. "Hi! I'm your neighbor down in 308. I thought you might like this cake, so..."

"Ah-one moment," said the voice. There was more clopping near the door, and it wasn't a knocker. A lock turned, and the door opened to reveal... more or less what I'd expected. I mean, I hadn't known what color she'd be. Not that it really mattered, but I guess I'd subconsciously imagined her as light green, like Lyra. The one the fans liked saying was into humans. I'd known she was a unicorn, so I guess I'd just filled in the blanks. But she was peach-colored, with a medium brown mane, and less exuberant than I'd imagined. I couldn't see her cutie mark clearly, but it looked like a spark between two poles. And there I was... in front of a pony. A generation four, Friendship is Magic pony. And what I'd planned to say went out of my head.

"You brought me a cake?" she asked, her eyes cautious.

"I mean, it's upside-down," I downplayed. "But yes. I brought you a cake." When I displayed it, her nostrils flared.

"Pineapple?" She seemed delighted by the idea.

"Yep, pineapple upside-down cake. I figured, as a new neighbor, you could use a pick-me-up." That was something I'd prepared, slipping out now.

"I didn't know you guys had pineapple cake here. I thought it was all vanillas and chocolates!"

Not knowing quite what to say to that, I shrugged. "I guess you're not from around here, then?"

She snorted and lifted a front hoof to her chest. "What do _you_ think?"

I smiled. "New to Earth?"

"Yeah. Just been a week." I felt something tugging at my hands and inhaled sharply, but it was just her magic, blue and electric, lifting the cake and its foil wrapper away from me. I watched as she set it on the counter in her ordinary-looking apartment.

"So how're you settling in?" It could easily have been the wrong question. But it seemed more innocuous than asking why she'd come to town, and I didn't want to just walk away and trust to seeing her in the halls. I wanted to forge something.

Uneasily, the unicorn sat down on her floor. "It's been slow. And tough." She must have been thinking along the same lines as me, because she smiled and asked, "So what's your name?"

"Ronald Pfeffer," I answered.

"Peach Spark," she said, tapping her chest.

I smiled back. "What's a Peach Spark?"

Her smile turned uncertain. "That's my name."

"I know. But still! What's a Peach Spark?"

Her skeptical eyes met my mirthful ones for a moment. "Beats me," she admitted. "It's just a couple of nice words that go together."

"So, a typical pony name."

She was eying me warily. "You could say that. What does Ronald Pfeffer mean?"

"Um. Well, Ronald means, like, counselor, and 'pfeffer' is German for 'pepper'. But I mean, it's not all one..."

"So you're Counselor Pepper."

"Uhh..."

"Only in code, so no one can understand it."

I stood there dumbly. "All right, all right," I laughed. "So my name's no better." I fell silent, wanting to ask whether she at least had some sense of what her name _might_ mean, but not knowing whether it would be out of line. This was about where I had to either keep the conversation going or just welcome her to the building and excuse myself. She knew it too, but she didn't say anything either for a while. It was like she didn't want to turn me away.

"You know, it's not that easy making friends here," she said.

I frowned, sticking my thumbs in my pockets. "You don't say."

"Is there some trick I've been missing?"

I shook my head. "Probably," I eventually admitted. "But I don't know it either."

She laughed a little. "You can dress it up, but back home, it's pretty much as simple as walking up to somep-someone and saying, 'Hi, my name's whatever-would you like to be friends?' And nine times out of ten, you've got a new friend."

"Reminds me of grade school," I told her.

She looked miffed at that. "Hmph. Well, we are for five-to-ten-year-olds, right?"

I didn't even grasp what she was saying at first.

"The show? That we're from? It's for grade schoolers, isn't it?"

"Oh. Um... yeah, I guess."

There was a lot of talk, even then, about whether we'd created the world of Friendship is Magic or just tapped into it somehow. Or whether there was even a difference. Really, the debate never stopped, but it had sort of become polite to talk about it in the latter way: We didn't create you, we just found you. And how lucky we are! Complicating the issue is that it was Equestrian magic, not Earth technology, that opened the paths between our worlds. So why our world, and not some other? Maybe because we're the ones who created them in the first place?

The metaphysics was beyond me—I just didn't want to tread on anyone's toes. This pony, though, Peach Spark, had a different attitude. "So, why is it a surprise if our society reminds you of your schools, then? You wrote us that way."

I stood there with my hand at my chest and my mouth open as if to say, _I_ didn't write you.

"Sorry. Sorry." The pony shook her head. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I could use a friend pretty bad. You in?"

There was nothing to think about. I'd spent the day baking a cake for her, hadn't I? "Yeah—absolutely I'll be your friend."

Her smile was tempered. "Some of the humans I've met said we'd be friends, but I haven't heard from them. I feel like they weren't being honest."

I smiled nervously. "Yeah. That happens."

She scowled. "I know it happens. It happens in Equestria, too. But not this much."

"Sorry. All I can say is, yeah. I'm in."

Finally, the pony's smile turned genuine, if weary. "You wanna come in?" I was still standing in the doorway.

"Sure." As I slipped in, I tried to think of the last time I'd been in a girl's apartment. Had it happened since Cindy? I didn't think so, but then again, did this really count?

It was a studio. There was a big futon mattress strewn with sheets, and cushions sitting here and there. A white padded chair that'd probably been part of a loveseat set. A rack of shelves filled with tools and a few books, and a little table covered in papers. Not much else that wasn't built in. I sat on the half-loveseat and she sat on a cushion facing me. And sighed.

"Sounds like it hasn't been easy, huh?" I asked.

"I didn't think it'd be easy," she said.

I had to ask. "So, why'd you leave? And why New Jersey?"

She'd just sat down, but she got up again. "There's work here. What do you say we cut that cake you brought?"

"I guess I wouldn't mind trying it."

She produced an actual cake knife from a kitchen drawer. I noticed that she used magic to open the drawer and unwrap the foil, but when it came to cutting the cake, she held the knife in her mouth, making it difficult for her to talk. On purpose?

"That's actually my second one," I remarked. "The first one was okay, but I think I overdid the baking powder or something."

She made a noise like "Really?" Soon enough, the cake was in pieces and we each had a slice before us, which she garnished with sprigs of fresh mint.

"It's not bad," she said, digging in.

"Thanks. So how do you like human food, so far?"

She looked up, crumbs on her muzzle. "Is there such a thing? Isn't it different depending what country you're in?"

I shrugged. "Well, sure, but still."

She finished a mouthful. "You guys eat about the same we do. Not really surprising. I guess you don't eat grass, though, huh?"

"Not really."

"Or flowers?"

I shook my head. "I mean, some of the grains we eat are technically grass, I think. And I know some people eat flowers..."

"But not usually?"

"Nope."

She dug in again. "Not looking forward to winter, then."

I watched her eat—she didn't seem to mind. Even though she had magic, she didn't bother with a fork—she just used her teeth, keeping her head over the plate.

"You said there was work here?"

"Yep." She licked her lips clean. "Good work for a unicorn who can solder. I'm with ThuneTec—they've got me rewiring circuit board prototypes. Easier than reprinting."

"How'd you learn to do that?"

"Crash vocational training in Long Hedge. Honestly? It just took a couple weeks to learn. I'm not especially skilled or educated. Just-" She tapped her horn a couple times with a hoof.

"So there's a call for unicorn magic on Earth."

"They say it has applications," she chimed, getting up for another slice of upside-down cake.

"So you answered the call?"

She switched her tail. "It's a living."

I waited until she was sitting down again. "Where's Long Hedge? Is that on my side or yours?"

"Mine. It's pretty close to Witherton, which is where I grew up."

"I don't remember Witherton from the show. Then again, I'm not a superfan."

"You just watched the show because?"

"Yeah." Everyone had watched it by then, pretty much. If a world of pastel horses pulls up beside yours, you're gonna want to learn what they're all about. Six seasons in, Celestia had opened a portal to Earth in order to ask our world's leaders for help overcoming a crisis she couldn't face any other way. There'd been chaos—even though it'd been classified, there were crazy rumors everywhere, and the media hadn't yet sorted out all the conspiracies. But our leaders, somehow, had gotten their act together enough to answer the call, and saved Equestria from being torn apart. Now, Equestria controlled all access to and from its world, and very few humans were allowed in. Immigration the other way wasn't so restrictive, but there wasn't much demand for it. Not too many ponies chose to leave their idyllic homeland when Earth was the alternative.

As for the show itself, it had wrapped up, but it had been replaced by a reality show starring Princess Twilight Sparkle. Spike was her cameradragon, except for aerial shots, which were mostly handled by Rainbow Dash. Color film was new to Equestria, as were various technical improvements to the filming process that Earth had provided. The show, which centered on life in Ponyville and occasionally on Twilight's royal duties, was edited by a royally appointed Canterlot crew, with Twilight as a producer. It was shown regularly in theaters throughout Equestria and on Earth television.

"Witherton isn't in the show. The closest place that was in the show is Winsome Falls. We're about thirty miles northwest. Long Hedge is a little closer, along the plateau."

"Okay."

"Work is fine, anyway. I mean, it's not like I understand the architecture of the boards I work on. But that just puts me on par with the whole software division."

"Uh huh."

She took a hefty bite of her second piece, this time using magic to lift it to her mouth. "So what do you do?"

"Nothing so impressive. I work in a big garden store."

Her eyes were hungry. "How big?"

I gestured. "The lot's about as big as this building."

She laughed, showing more mirth than I'd seen so far. "You think that's less impressive than mucking around with tiny transistors?"

"Aheh. Uh, yeah! It's uniform work. You know, restocking, building displays, helping customers carry things..."

"Do you know about gardens?"

"I've picked up a fair bit. My ex-fiance and I had a little garden of our own back in Hoboken, but mostly I'm a vicarious gardener."

"Then your job is more impressive than mine."

I hadn't expected anybody to ever tell me that. I leaned back in the chair and stretched my legs. "Do you get a salary?"

"I will, once they get my paperwork through!"

"I'm a wage worker. So."

"So?"

"So you win."

She laughed. "I win?"

"Yep. Your job is better."

She finished her second piece of cake and wrinkled her nose at me, a few crumbs clinging. "Because of the way we get paid? You're just trying to make me feel better, aren't you?"

A few possible answers flashed through my head before I came up with: "Isn't that what friends are for?"

She was caught off guard by that one. Slowly, she started nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, it is!"

I stood up, having finished my slice of cake a while ago. "Well, in that case, I think I'll leave on a high note."

"You're going already? I didn't hurt your feelings, did I?"

"Nah." I spread my hands. "I mean, I could stay. It's just... I'm a little shy, that's all."

"Really? Shy? You're the one who knocked on my door and introduced yourself."

"I know. And... well, that's about all I've got in me for one day! But don't worry... I'll be back."

She stood up. "You'd better."

Well, the truth was, I wasn't _quite_ as shy as all that. It was more that I'd never talked to a pony before, and the experience had given me a lot to absorb. But I didn't want to make my new friend feel any more unusual than she already did.

I smiled shyly. "I'm just down in 308. Stop by if you need anything."

"308, got it. Will do."

"It was nice meeting you, Peach Spark."

"Nice meeting you, Counselor Pepper."

I stopped on my way to the door and looked back at her in dismay.

"Sorry, I forgot your real name," she said sheepishly.

"It's Ron. Or Ronald. No—you know what? Counselor Pepper is fine."

She chuckled. "You sure?"

I stepped into the hallway and held the door. "You can call me Pepper for short."

"Only if you call me Peach!"

I found this unexpectedly flattering. "I'll think about it," I replied, stifling a grin. "See you around, Sparky."

She snorted with indignant laughter and shut the door on me. "Sparky, indeed!" I heard her say.

I lingered in the hallway for at least half a minute before heading down again. Well, I'd done it. I'd indulged my fancy and met the pony in our building. But now that the experience was over, where did it leave me?

It left me with a new friend, is where it left me. And friendship is both a joy and a burden. My act might have been impulsive, but it would have consequences.

I grinned and started wondering when I'd see her again.


	2. Fantasy Hoofball

(==)

Part of what it means to be shy—one small silver lining—is that you get to enjoy secret passions. There's something to be said for texting the whole world with what's floating your boat, but sometimes that just lets the excitement get away from you. When my job was dull, which was more often than not, I used to fixate on something exciting to pass the time. A big game coming up, for example, or a trip I was planning, even if it was just to Manhattan. When I was with Cindy of course, sometimes it would be her—a date we were planning, or our wedding, or (more likely) our honeymoon night. If I had nothing exciting in my life, I'd make something up. I've never had any deficit of imagination.

Now, in the week after meeting the unicorn in 412, I found my imagination didn't need any help at all. To my surprise, I was fixating on when we'd meet again. I was mulling over excuses for dropping by and dishes I could make and introductory lines I could use, and imagining what we'd do, Peach Spark and I, and it was halfway through a greenhouse shift that I realized I was thinking about her a lot like I used to think about prospective dates. That muddled me up, because I'd also been telling myself I wasn't thinking about her that way.

Really, it was an easy argument: I'm not attracted to ponies, I'm attracted to women. That should be the end of it, right? But some part of me kept fantasizing about spending time with Peach Spark, and eventually I realized something important: Even though it was all from a non-sexual place, it might as well have been sexual, because it involved that same thrill of exploration—that same sense of a gold mine right in front of me, waiting to be delved into. The bliss of the unknown. My first girlfriend had felt like that, and so had Cindy, and now so did Peach Spark, even if the nature of that mine was completely different. And really, why shouldn't it be different? Discovery was all about newness, wasn't it? You can't discover what you already know.

As it turned out, I didn't need to settle on an excuse. Three days after I'd introduced myself, she visited me. Somehow, I'd known it was her just from the way she rapped on the door. Luckily, I was fully dressed and not in the middle of anything.

"Hi!" I said, opening up. It felt strange to open my door and see an unnaturally colored quadruped smiling nervously at me. Like something had gone wrong with the apartment's utilities, and now my door opened into the TV set for whatever reason. But it was definitely a good kind of strange.

"Hi, Pepper!" She sat down, right in the hallway. "Is this an okay time? To visit, I mean?"

"Sure, yeah. What's up?"

There was a little flash of forlorn in her eyes before she went back to friendly. "Nothing's up, really. It's just you haven't come by, and I was wondering... you know."

If I'd forgotten her? If I'd been fibbing about being friends, like those other people she'd met? Instantly, I realized I'd been foolish. I hadn't needed an excuse to visit—I just needed to go. She hadn't had an excuse, and here she was anyway, on the floor in the hall.

I also realized I was blocking the doorway. "Oh, come in, come in! Yeah, I'd been thinking about visiting—honest!" But was an understatement like that really honest?

She ambled into my pad and looked around. Her eye was caught by my wall of pennants, which delighted me. It was at that moment I had my first flash of insight into how the joy of discovery really works—it was as much about what _she_ was discovering as what I would.

"What's all this?"

"Just a tour of the American East! These are mostly from college football." I lifted a dangling Mountaineers pennant. "Do you know what football is?"

"It's a sport," she offered.

"Too true. Ever seen a game?"

"Seen, nothing. I've played!"

That caught me off guard, but it wasn't long before I remembered the clues—that one time Fluttershy wore a football helmet; the kick-off between Rainbow Dash and Applejack; the fake football mark Twilight tried to give Apple Bloom. (Of course, they called it 'hoofball', but whatever.) It turned out, though, that the game they played in Equestria had somewhat different rules. Ironically, the fact that the players had four feet made it impossible for them to play proper _football_: they were unable to carry the ball while running. That meant their game's downs ended upon a successful pass or recovery, but it also meant a plethora of other different rules, such as 'charging' in addition to tackling, intercepting players being allowed to pass the ball, and rare situations in which players could make a second pass. Not to mention that their field goals, kick-offs and punts were normally made with both rear hooves at once. We had an amusing time imagining human players playing by Equestrian rules.

And there it was. Mission accomplished—ice broken. Touchdown. My guest lay sprawled over my sofa, front legs on a wooden chest, tail switching intermittently from one side to the other. It didn't look like she could possibly be comfortable like that, but she seemed to be. I was in a stuffed chair with a ginger ale, but I'd been joking around on the floor, helping Peach Spark show me how to charge the quarterback. I grinned at the wall of pennants—they'd finally come in handy for something.

"That one says 'Buffalo'," she noticed, pointing one out.

"Mm, yeah. Buffalo Bulls. University of Buffalo."

She perked up, which made my heart even lighter. "You have a university for buffalo?"

"It's... no, sorry. You know we humans are the only folks over here."

A little deflation, a little weight back on my heart. "Oh yeah, right. Then why's it called that?"

"It's in the city of Buffalo. New York."

She turned to look at me. "You have a city called Buffalo, but no buffalo to live there?"

I sighed. "It's a cruel world, Peach."

She pushed herself back onto the sofa and put her forelegs over the armrest, looking at me. "Is it?"

"I was joking, but... well, kind of."

"Is that why—" She stopped short.

"Is that why what?"

"Never mind. So, do you pay hoofball, or do you—"

"Is that why we make up worlds like yours? Is that what you were asking?"

She pulled herself in. "Yeah."

"I think so. Yeah, I think it is. You... you've got fantasies in your world, right?"

"Of course. But do you mean in books?"

"Sure, books. I mean, there's Daring Do, right?" Except she'd turned out to be based on reality. Was there anything so fanciful in the world of Equestria that it couldn't ever be real?

She nodded. "We've got plenty of stories. Adventure stories like Yearling's stuff, sure. Historical fiction, romances, intrigue..."

"What about fantasy?"

She seemed to be getting increasingly cautious, while remaining friendly. "Like horror stories? We've got those."

"Horror is different from fantasy. I mean..." But I didn't really know fantasy, myself. I gestured. "Wild stuff. Weird creatures that don't really exist. Kinds of magic that aren't real."

"Yeah, that's more or less horror. Or maybe the really arcane historical stuff. Unless you're talking about foal's lit?"

"I... I guess I might be. What kind of stuff happens in foals' books?"

"Well..." Now it was her turn to gesture vaguely. "Like, you buy an egg at the market and it hatches, only instead of a chicken it's a tiny fox, and the fox sings and the song paints your walls... bizarre stuff like that."

"Huh. And that sort of thing doesn't happen in grown-ups' books?"

"Not that I can think of. I'm not the biggest reader."

"Better question. Is that possible in real life? Could an egg ever really hatch a tiny fox that paints the walls with its song?"

"Never heard of anything like that," she answered seriously.

"But is it possible?"

Something seemed to be rising in her. "Who knows? Anything's possible. Enchant a fox so it lays eggs, stick some music in it..."

"There's magic that can do that?"

"How should I know?" she snapped. "Just because I'm a unicorn doesn't mean I know the ultimate boundaries of magic."

I took a breath and sat back. "So... when you say 'Anything's possible', you really believe it."

She stared. "You don't?"

I had to think about it. "I guess... I guess now I do."

Her smile was self-satisfied.

"So... it sounds like you don't really have the concept of 'fantasy' that we do," I pressed.

"We have personal fantasies. But no, I don't think it's a kind of fiction, if that's what you're getting at."

"Then I guess the answer's yes. We make worlds like yours, because we need to."

Peach Spark sat back, biting her own lip. Was she upset, or just digesting? I couldn't tell.

"You want anything to eat? Another ginger ale, maybe?"

She looked at me, still biting her lip. "I'm good."

I tried to guess what she was thinking. My eyes strayed to the pennants and jerseys on my wall, and I blurted: "You know, I wonder why your rules are different from ours. For football, I mean."

"I thought we covered that. Different body shapes."

"Yeah, but—" There was something here, and I wanted to find it. "Look. That wouldn't have stopped the writers, if they'd actually ever shown a game. They could have had you guys running with the ball. I mean, I know ponies can sometimes run on two legs—we see Pinkie doing it..."

"That mare is mental."

I snickered. "Well maybe, but... I mean, it's physiologically possible, right?"

"Sure. Just, really, really awkward. I mean..." She thought. "Would you have a sport where you walk on all fours? Or just on your hands?"

"That'd be a sight."

"Can you even walk on your hands?"

"I can't. Some people can."

"So there you go. Anything's _possible_, but some things are just dumb."

"You could carry the ball in your mouth. Or just unicorns could carry it."

"Hoofball's mainly an earth pony game. I mean, yeah, sure, we... we _could've_ been written that way. But..." She licked the inside of her mouth. "I'm glad we weren't."

The mindblowing aspect of our worlds' relationship was finally coming to light. I worked up some courage, and then asked: "So if the show's writers had made different choices... do you think you'd be here now?"

She looked sharply at me. Her eyes were brighter than you might expect, right between blue and green. I hadn't really noticed before. "Probably not me, no. Somepony a lot like me, sure."

"Isn't that weird?"

She banged the arm of my sofa. "Isn't this whole _thing_ weird?"

I couldn't argue with that. "Honestly. Do you think Lauren Faust and the staff of the show, do you think they shaped you?"

"It's a nonsense question. It's pig manure."

"It's not nonsense! We were just talking about football—"

She interrupted loudly. "We have—the relationship we have. Okay?"

I was silent. I would have said I was sorry, if I thought it would mean something.

"Look." The unicorn got off my couch and paced slowly, awkwardly around the room. "From my point of view. A big threat shows up, it's just rumors for most of us. A god-tremor that's gonna tear our world apart if our leaders don't do something. Not a thing most of us can do about it, especially not without facts. But the princesses deal with this kind of thing. Celestia opens a portal, and suddenly there are these new weird creatures coming through and sending gifts, okay, fine. Weird, but not much weirder than the Dragon Kingdom and their insane traditions, or the Crystal Empire popping up after a thousand years. It happens." She paused to steal a swig from my ginger ale. "But then the crisis passes, and we learn these creatures aren't just otherworldly people." She looked at me straight-on. "They're our creators. They conceived of us, as their figments, their _fantasies_. Suddenly I'm a fantasy. I'm someone's wish come true. Maybe yours, Ronald."

"That's not fair-"

"Let me _talk._ Everything in our world, everything we thought was the way it was because of..." She stood upright and waved her front hooves. "What does it matter? Forget all the natural history books in the libraries, forget the ancient scrolls. We're the way we are because of _you_. Because of people we'd never heard of. Your culture, your history, your dreams. That's why. We are. The way we are." Again, her bright eyes glared, and I appreciated their power. "What does it _matter_ whether you found us or you made us? We have our history either way, just the same. And the history isn't wrong. It's just... it's irrelevant. _This_ place is what matters. You wanted to know why I came here."

"You... you said there was good-paying work here for a unicorn."

"That's just what made it possible. That's why I came to Elizabeth—there was an offer. But I came to _Earth_ because..." She looked behind herself and shook her head. "I don't understand why _everypony_ doesn't. I know, it's rotten here. I know, it's full of crime and poverty and the crime and poverty in our world is just a _shadow_. I get that it's hard!" She stamped her hoof. "But this is the _motherland_, Pepper! I came here... I came here because it's the motherland. And I've got to understand."

I really had not expected a speech like this from the relatively wary peach-colored pony I'd met last Sunday, or the perky mare I'd just pretended to play hoofball with. I felt incapable of answering, but I tried. "You've got to understand what makes you the way you are."

"Yes." Her face was close to mine now, and I can't say I wasn't a little afraid. "I've got to. All my life, I thought the teachers and the books and the laboratories had the answers. Failing them, the royal academy, or at least the _princess_ must have the answers!" She swallowed, inches from me. "But now it turns out they were all wrong. Every one of them. The answers are all over here, instead."

I looked down, closed my eyes, and breathed. It was too much. I understood what she was saying, but I didn't have any comfort. If comfort was even what she needed.

"I'm sorry." I forced myself to meet her eyes again. She'd sat down on the little rug in the middle of the room. "Sorry I went off like that," she said quietly. Then she paused. "Things can be peachy, but all it takes is a spark."

My eyes fell to her cutie mark. Definitely a spark of blue, probably electricity. Definitely two metal rods with nodes on the ends. It didn't go with the color of her coat, but it matched her eyes, and her eyes went with her coat. _Her eyes bridged the gap._

"I know how that is," I murmured. "At least a little. I never had my world turned upside-down, but... I know how one little thing..."

She gave me a meaningful look.

"One little thing can bring it all crashing down," I said.

"Yeah," she agreed. "And this? This isn't little."

I scooted back in my chair. "No. I guess it's not," I admitted.

I don't know how much silence followed. When I next looked up, Peach Spark was at the door, her tail low.

"See you around, Pepper." She didn't sound angry. She sounded determined.

"Oh—glad you could stop by!" I knew I sounded like an idiot, but I had to say something.

"Thanks for the ginger ale." With that, she stepped out and her magic reached to shut the door behind her. I was alone.

My mind churned. I didn't understand everything, but somehow, I had to get that pony the answers she needed. I had to.

Would I have been happier if it things been the other way around?


	3. Sanitization

/ / /

Friday morning. Seven hour shift at the garden center. The newsstand near the rail depot rarely catches my attention, but it does today. I eye the magazines with a curious eye—an outsider's eye, now that I've got a friend who's very much an outsider—but with a certain satisfaction I settle for a simple newspaper. I get my news from apps and the web, but it feels good to hold a newspaper in my hands for a change. I wonder whether unicorns get the same pleasure from hefting something weighty and good with their magic. I wonder what pleasures I may be missing.

Four o'clock. I take the light rail home, shower and change, and fix myself a sandwich. I've already showered once today, but today I feel special. I feel like an information provider. I head to the stairwell, intending to head up to 412, and my face breaks out in the biggest unexpected smile when I hear _clip clop clip_ on the stairs below and I realize I've caught her on her way home.

There's the dull creak of a door opening below. "Hey, pony!" says a too-loud man's voice. It's not a greeting as much as a challenge, or a look-at-me call.

"Hey." That's Peach's voice. I hear her rise past the second floor landing.

"You back from your big job? Earn some good cash today, pony?"

I can't imagine what he's implying, but I hate the man. I start down the stairs.

"What do _you_ think?" asks Peach Spark. I see her with her head up and mane frazzled. There's a blue halo around her horn.

The man laughs. He's got a big chest and stubble just under his chin. "I think you earn your keep pretty good."

Just walk past him, I think. He's not gonna chase you. But my friend pauses on the steps and eyes the man. "Why don't you just be frank? What do you want from me?"

This shuts him up for a moment. "I just want to be friends, pony!" he declares, like it's the funniest thing in the world and he's got an audience, which he doesn't. Just me. He glances up at me and raises an eyebrow.

Peach notices me too. "Pepper," she breathes. "Hi."

"Hi," I say. "I was just heading up to your place. Gonna see if you were in."

My words weren't meant for the big man, of course, but he does a double take. "You... were headed up to her place?" Scathing mock-concern.

Peach looks quickly between me and the troublemaker. "You want to be my friend? Then you can come up too," she tells him in the tone of an ultimatum.

I blink a few times. Am I going to have to throw a punch in the stairwell? Is the super going to hear about this?

The man glances up the stairs and back to Peach. "You want me... to come up to your place?"

"You said you want to be my friend," repeats Peach, and I can hear the nastiness she's holding in. "If that's true, you can come up and join us."

The man laughs in disbelief crossed with triumph. He glances to the side like there's a buddy there to back him up, but there's not. "You got me wrong, pony. I don't want to go up to your place."

Peach keeps speaking evenly, yet impatiently. "And yet, that's what it's going to take. If you want to be my friend."

His laughs get more disgusted, quieter, more embarrassed. Finally, he snorts in exasperation and utters, very quietly as if in disbelief—"You're a slut!"

I move down the stairs, and Peach takes a breath. "Right then," she says, moving up. We almost collide—it's awkward. She nods up the stairs, and I look at the bewildered man, turn around, and rise ahead of her.

He watches us go but doesn't say anything more.

We let the fourth floor door latch behind us before speaking. "That guy's a ******* bully," I gripe.

"No kidding," says Peach.

"I'm sorry you had to put up with that! You know, you could've just walked by him. You didn't need to engage."

"Engage?" She looks back at me as we walk. "You mean, talk to him?"

"Yeah, he clearly wasn't up to any good."

She chews her bottom lip. I wonder if it's a habit of hers. "I know."

We walk. "So why'd you talk to him?"

"I'm here to learn, remember? And besides, he said he wanted to be friends."

Unbelievable. "Peach, he was making fun of you! He didn't mean it."

"I know."

"So?"

"I had to give him the benefit of the doubt, didn't I? Or I'd be as bad as he was?"

She turns around again and gives me the chance to tell her she's wrong. I can't. "You're the friendship expert," I admit.

This vindicates her. "Thank you!" And moments later: "Being Equestrian's gotta be good for something."

We go into her apartment. I plop my copy of the _Star-Ledger_ down on her counter. I'd meant to present it to her as a treasured gift—oh, well.

Her ears twitch. "Is that a newspaper?"

"Yeah."

"Is it for me?"

"Yeah. I figured you might want to check out the news. I mean, I know you don't have internet..."

Her legs are around my shoulders before I know it; she's hugging me. I start breathing faster. "_Thank_ you," she says. She lets go before I can start hugging back. I've been hugged by a pony!

"You really needed some kind of boost, huh?" I ask.

"_Anything_," she confirms, heading to the fridge.

"Have a hard day?"

She bustles around in there, emerging with a deli pasta salad and a jar of artichoke hearts in her blue glow. "You could say that." She plops the jar on the counter and drops some hearts directly into the salad. Then she levitates a fork from a drawer and goes to sit on a cushion beside her little table. "Really, it wasn't that hard. Just thankless."

"Your coworkers don't appreciate you?"

A bowl rises up before me, inviting me to take it. I smile at Peach and take the bowl—it's strange being handed something by a unicorn. "I think they appreciate me. Like you appreciate a wire cutter or a can opener."

"That doesn't sound so good."

"It's not." She pats a cushion beside her. I go and sit next to her, and she uses her mind to spoon some of her salad into my bowl. I grin without knowing why, except that this feels intimate.

"Thanks," I say. "They just appreciate you like you were a tool?"

"That's kind of what I am to them. The chief engineer gives me schematics and I follow them. Sometimes he wants variations and I implement them. I'm basically a tool, just making tiny canals of copper flow here instead of there."

"But you understand the schematics. I mean, that takes skill."

"A little. It's not as if I make my own suggestions. The fact that I'm a person, that I can talk, isn't really relevant to what I do most of the time. I mean, they make small talk with me, but it's got nothing to do with what I'm there for."

"Sorry to hear it,"I say around a mouthful of cranberries, celery and fusilli. "I wish it weren't like that, but a lot of people's jobs treat them like tools."

She munches. "Maybe so, but how many of them are surrounded by the thinkers?"

I was thinking of assembly lines more than anything. "I guess that's pretty uncommon."

"I feel like an expensive toy," she mutters. "'What if we have Peach do this? Well, what if we have her do this?' I just stand there, or sit, and wait for someone else to make the plan." She looks sharply at me. "Have you got any of the toys? The plastic ponies with the hair?"

I don't know what answer she's hoping for. "No, I never saw any point in it."

"We'll need to get some," she decides, glowering. She returns to her salad.

"What for?"

"I want to know what it's like." She looks back. "Playing with them. I want to see if it feels like what they do to me."

I can't hide my grin completely behind my fork. "Somehow I doubt it."

"I'm not so sure," she counters. We ate for a while.

She hovers over the newspaper then, so I help her make sense of the stories. Eventually I let her read on her own for a while. I take a look at the electrical equipment on her shelves, wondering where she got it all. When I look back, she's poring through the weather report on the back of the local section.

I smile. "Just so you know... those are sometimes wrong."

She takes a moment before looking up. "Huh?"

"The weather forecasts. They're not always right."

She wrinkles her brow. "They're not always _right?_"

"No, they can be pretty far off sometimes."

"Why... why would they even print them if they're not true?"

My smile gets bigger, but I restrain myself. "They're just guesses! We don't control the weather here. We just guess what it's going to be."

She looks at me like I'm crazy, and I can't stop myself from snickering.

"I heard about that, I guess," she admits. "Still. Why even bother printing_ guesses?_"

I shrug. "Better than nothing."

She stares at the page for a while, and then turns, frowning, to the crossword puzzle.

I wish I were any good at crosswords so I could offer to do the puzzle with her. Instead, I sit down and make conversation. "Did you get newspapers in Witherton?"

"We had a small one," she answers. "My family got the _Equestria Daily_ instead."

"Did it cost more?"

"Yeah, somewhat. Teleported in each morning, so."

I try to wrap my head around the concept of teleportation costs. "So how different is it?"

She frowns in thought. "You've got more detail. Your stories are longer." She levitates the paper and riffles the pages briefly, though she lacks the precision of Twilight Sparkle. "It's more pages, too. Your paper just has more in it."

"Huh. Well, we are in the biggest metro area in the country."

"Yeah. But even so." She reads.

"Even so?"

"It's not just that you've got more people. It's not just that more happens here." She runs a hoof along the length of a column, a story about a debate over where to build a mosque. "There's actually more detail. I'm starting to see that everywhere."

This is a little chilling. "More detail?"

"All the procedural stuff at work. The meetings, the manuals. Best practices. All the laws! Is it true your lawbooks are, like, reams thick?" She raises one forehoof above the floor to demonstrate.

"I think they don't usually compile them into one book," I answer.

"Exactly. And no one knows what's in them. I've been looking everywhere, Pepper. Your architecture. Your cities, like the layout. I'm starting to think it's even the way people behave, the social codes or whatever. And now the newspapers." She shuts the paper up with a magical clap. "Everything is more complicated here."

I want to give her a hug, but she doesn't look receptive. "I guess it feels that way getting used to a new place..."

She shakes her head. "I've been here almost two weeks. I'm pretty sure it's not just that." She looks me in the eye, accusatory. "You wrote us simple. Didn't you."

The chill I've been feeling washes over me. "Um... I guess? I mean, it is a kids' show."

There's sullen triumph on her face. "Exactly. We had to be simple enough for your kids to understand. Oh, Celestia. Oh, dear sweet heavens."

She folds up with her eyes closed and her face in the paper. I climb over and put my arm around her. She twitches but softens.

"Maybe it has to be this way," she mutters through her hooves, her ears tilting back. "Maybe you can't create a world without making it simpler. Maybe it's just not possible to keep everything."

"But hold on," I object. "There's tons of stuff in your world that wasn't in the show. All the geography, the countries no one'd ever heard of. The history. All the nitty gritty stuff, the economics, the grown-up stuff. I mean, that exists! You have all that, right, even though it never got shown?"

I've seen lists, in fact, of countless details about Equestria and the world containing it that were never even hinted at in canon. They were part of the great news onslaught that accompanied first contact between our worlds. But the funny thing was, in all those debates and testimonials, I never once saw anyone make Peach's simple, devastating observation: You wrote us simple. Probably a lot of people on both sides were thinking it, but were just afraid to say it out loud.

"There's all that, sure," says Peach, still huddled. "But that's breadth. Not depth."

I hug her as well as I can from the side. "You seem deep to me." I sound corny even to myself. I can't believe I'm saying this to a girl.

Slowly she stands up and takes a deep breath. She turns around, now standing on the paper. It seems like she's calming down. Then she raises her head and asks in a small but piercing voice: "What's a slut?"

Oh, god. "You don't know that word?"

"No. I don't know it. What did that man call me?"

Please, someone else, answer this question for me. But no one else is there, of course, because I'm her only friend. The girl with one friend needs it explained why she's been called a slut. "It's... it means someone... a girl... who's easy. Who goes to bed with everyone."

"Goes to bed with... oh, seriously? So, he was calling me loose under the covers?"

I wince. "Yeah. You invited him up, I was going up with you, I guess he jumped to some conclusions."

She stares at me in horror. "Is that what people will think? If you're coming to see me, we must be involved?"

I hang my head a little. "I don't know. Maybe. It's not like there are social standards for this."

"Because I'm a pony?"

"...Yeah."

"So what if I weren't a pony? What if I were a woman? Would people assume it then?"

"Um." My experience is limited, but... "Probably, yeah."

She hides her face again. "Crepes," she swears. "And we don't even have the language for it." Up comes her stare. "You didn't just write us simple. You sanitized us!"

_It wasn't me_, I mouth, but I can't say it aloud.

"Do you have other words we're not allowed to have? Secret words? Forbidden words?"

I nod humbly and name a few of them for her.

"CREPES!" She stands up tall and throws up her head, wincing, and it seems like the exact wrong time to tell her 'crepes' isn't a real swear.

I glance at the paper lying on the floor. The top story, which we covered earlier, is another scandal—this time the governor's being accused of retributory politics. Sure, we have nasty politics. We even have brutal dictators. But at least we don't have supervillains—not really. I'm about to point that out, but then I realize even supervillains are just sanitized evil. Sanitation doesn't mean getting rid of evil. It means making it comprehensible.

"Peach."

She seems about ready to cry. She doesn't speak.

I talk as gently as I can, almost apologetically. "You know, your world is what it is. Because of its history, because of its magic, its great leaders, its creatures..." She shuts her eyes, all her legs still stretched out fully. "If your world _is_ so nice it doesn't need words like 'slut'... that's because things have gone so well. One way or another, you've learned to live in harmony. It's not because we somehow made you this way. It's because... that's how ponies are. You should be... you should be proud."

She heaves a deep breath and the tension leaves her. "Even so," she mumbles. "Even so. Even if it's historical chance that did it, not a writer's pen. We're simpletons. We're children, in grown-up bodies, leading grown-up lives."

"You are _not_ children."

"We might as well be."

"Then what's so bad about that?"

She shook her head.

"You're what we wish we could be. What's so bad about that?"

She walks away, back toward her kitchenette. Away go the leftover pasta salad and the artichoke hearts, back into the fridge. Back comes Peach to lie on her futon mattress. Her mane's a mess, and I feel bad for wanting to comb it.

"It means we're less than you are, Pepper," she finally says, looking at the floor. "A wish is only a part of a person."

"You're not any less than we are," I counter. "You've got all this stuff we don't have. Magic. Weather control. Supervillains, and epic quests, and trees of harmony and empires rising after a thousand years. Wishes can be more, not less."

She looks at me with pity, as if I just said the corniest thing in the world. Cornier than 'You seem deep to me.' I look back at her sadly because I meant it.

"Well, either way, I'm just a wish," she says, swishing her tail. "I don't know, Pepper. That's gonna take some getting used to."

I wish I could argue with that.


	4. Turtlewood Coffee

\~/

I may give the impression of being kind of a lonely guy, and it's true. Like Peach Spark, I moved here for the work, but actually for another reason. My engagement had failed and I wanted to put some distance between myself and Cindy, and I had friends in the metro area. One of them, Laurie, had known about an opening at her garden center, and another, Barrett, had known about a vacancy in his apartment building. It had all worked out perfectly, so I moved in and took the job.

Now, four years later, Laurie was no longer at the garden center, Barrett was no longer in the apartment building, and I didn't see much of that group of friends anymore. Yet there I still was, plugging away.

My brother Noam lived across the state, near Mom. Our sister lived nearby too, but we didn't hear from her much these days except for special occasions. Noam, though, would call me up once or twice a week to catch up. Usually I didn't have much to report.

"Mom wants to know if you've met any girls lately," he told me Sunday night. Well, that was a beautiful way of putting it. I was puttering in the kitchen, trying to recreate my success from the week before, but with mandarin oranges and maraschino cherries instead of pineapple.

"Kind of?" I answered.

"Kind of? Kind of like, you've kind of met someone, or kind of like, you're only kind of into her?"

I could have weaseled out, but that wasn't how mom raised me. "Kind of like, kind of a girl."

"Uh..." My brother's voice was nervously confused. "D—you mean like—an older woman?"

I actually had the idea Peach and I were about the same age. "Not what I meant, no." I wanted to see how long it would take him to guess.

"You're being tricky. Uh—wait. A pony? You met a pony girl?!"

I smiled—didn't take him long at all. "That's right."

He laughed uneasily. "Um... so... are you into her?"

I wasn't sure quite what to say, so I stopped being coy and laid it on the line. "I'm not attracted to her, if that's what you mean. Not physically. But I can't stop thinking about her."

There's a pause. "Is that what you want me to tell Mom?" asked my brother.

My turn to laugh nervously. "Not in the slightest," I replied.

He laughed with me. "Yeah—I didn't think so. So... so why can't you stop thinking about her?"

"I don't know. She's the first pony I've ever met—I guess that's why. She's fascinating!"

"Is it because she's different?"

I didn't feel like I liked his tone, but I wasn't sure. "Come on, Noam. Don't you want to know what ponies think? Don't you want to know how their minds work?"

"Sounds kind of like a trip to the science museum. And maybe the zoo, too."

"That's a crass way of putting it."

"Sorry, Ron. So what—you fell in love with her mind?"

"I'm not in love."

"Well, you said you can't stop thinking about her."

"It's an exciting new friendship, that's all."

My brother let out a sudden high-pitched cheer that made me jerk my phone away. "WOOO! An exciting new friendship! Way to go, Ron!" His laugh was knowing now, not nervous. "I'm sure glad you know the difference between an exciting new friendship with a girl and being in love, 'cause I sure wouldn't."

Did I mention he's my older brother?

"No, you probably wouldn't," I retorted. His comment had struck home—he'd wanted me to feel doubt, and I did.

"Well, you have fun with your mare friend. I'll tell Mom you're still looking."

Huh. _Was_ I still looking? "Thanks. Maybe I'll bring her over sometime."

"Yeah, that'd be a hoot."

"...Later, Noam."

"Catch you later, Ron."

Well, that had been embarrassing. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Peach at all. But I couldn't stand lying to people I cared about.

\~/

Peach Spark didn't have a mobile phone, or an internet connection. She had a land line—I'd seen a phone in her apartment—but in our three times together I'd never asked for her number. In a way, it was better to have to drop a note in her mailbox in order to get in touch with her. She was still exotic, still exciting. You don't just call a unicorn up on the phone. You have to summon her with paper and ink. I figured a little sticker of Fluttershy smiling at some butterflies couldn't hurt either.

"Missed you last Monday," my note read. "Sorry—I had to work all weekend. Want to get together sometime?" I signed it "Counselor Pepper". Really, I was afraid things had gone wrong between us after last time. When I'd left her apartment, she'd been pretty upset about her place in the world. I'd done my best to console her, and when I'd gotten home, I consoled myself that none of it was my fault. But that didn't mean she'd want to see me again.

I got a reply in my box two days later. Her handwriting—no, hornwriting—was smooth and a little loopy. "Want to take me out? I'm not too brave on my own out there. I heard about a place in Lower Manhattan that likes serving ponies. Let me know when you're up for it. —Sparky"

Well, that was exciting. Brave or not, if she was calling herself Sparky, things must be looking up for her.

As for this place that 'likes serving ponies'? I agreed to take her not knowing whether it was a restaurant or a nightclub or what, but it turned out to be a coffee shop. I showed up on Saturday at noon, prepared for the trip with an umbrella against the drizzly day. Peach Spark greeted me with a smile.

I couldn't leave well enough alone. "What happened to all the angst? What happened to being just a wish for other people?"

She peered at me with amusement, pulling on a yellow raincoat. "Are you ribbing me?"

"Maybe a little. But I'm just wondering..."

"Are you ribbing me about being a fictional character? Really?"

I flushed. "But you're not a fictional character."

"Only because I wasn't important enough to rate being on the show. But I belong to a fictional species, don't I? From a fictional world. Are you really going to make fun of me for that?"

"I would never!"

"Really?" She looked up at me with shining blue-green eyes, and did I mention she was wearing a _yellow raincoat?_ "Not even a little?"

I was too flustered to be witty. "Do you want me to?" I mumbled.

"Believe it or not, it might make it easier," she answered.

I'd moved up from flustered to delightfully flabbergasted. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Don't worry!" she reassured me. "I'm sure something'll come to you."

She twirled her tail in the rain, once we got outside. I kept watching it as we walked. She didn't seem to have a reason for it, other than it being fun. I didn't have the guts to ask about it, but I wondered whether I'd be twirling my tail too, if I had one.

I'm lucky to afford my own apartment in the city with my job—a car is right out. And as far as I know, they aren't even making cars for ponies yet. So that meant a trip by train and by subway to reach the Lower East Side. Peach was getting used to buses and trains—at least they had the latter in Equestria—but the subway still unnerved her.

The train into New York was relatively empty, with plenty of room for Peach to lie across two seats, as was her preference. She'd gotten looks, but just curious ones, as far as I could tell, not angry ones. We had a nice conversation about local landmarks—what she'd seen and done so far, what she was planning on checking out. She hadn't been to Manhattan yet, and in truth it had been a while for me, too. This, I told her, was easily the farthest I'd ever gone for a coffee shop. Then again, I'm not a huge coffee drinker, and I tend to brew my own when I want it. Peach, for her part, had never even had a cup of coffee.

"Never? Really?"

Peach shrugged. "It's a Cameluvian drink."

I'd heard the name Camelu once or twice since the whole mess began. "But Camelu's not on the show, is it?"

"Exactly. Never even mentioned, except in a fan-made video. And coffee doesn't show up anywhere."

"So it's lucky you even have coffee at all."

"Lucky! Well, that's one way of looking at it!" Again her tail twirled as we boarded our subway car. I winced as I imagined it getting caught in the automatic doors. I made sure we walked far enough in there was no chance of that.

We weren't so lucky with the subway—it was pretty full, and we had to stand. Our conversation would have to wait until we reached our station. When the train started off, Peach stumbled forward, then back. Worrying she was going to bump someone, I grabbed her thigh. She thanked me. I shifted my position so I could hold her lightly against me with my hand on her back, and that seemed to work. It was embarrassing, but I can't say I wasn't glad for the touch.

"Can't you hold one of these handles with your magic?" I whispered.

"What good would that do? It wouldn't keep _me_ from stumbling."

"But..." That seemed wrong. "If you can pull the handle toward you, then isn't that the same as pulling yourself toward it?"

She looked quizzically at me. "Since when is that the same?"

I shrugged. "Never mind. Guess the laws of physics don't apply."

Weirdly—weirdly, it was _that_, and not me grabbing her thigh, that made her blush.

It's hard to tell if people are watching you in a crowded subway car, since no one makes eye contact anyway. But there was a little girl, maybe five years old, with her mother a few rows away. We must have heard her say "Mom, that's a pony!" at least three times.

"Yes it is, darling. Now hush!" said her mother.

"Can I pet the pony?"

"No—stay here with me."

"Please?"

"No! Stay here."

That left us in awkward silence. I crouched and whispered into Peach's ear: "Can I pet the pony?"

She sighed and gave me a look.

"Some other time, then," I said.

By the time we left the subway, the rain had stopped, so I offered to carry Peach's raincoat. "So. Coffee," I prompted.

"Coffee," she said, looking around and spying a sign for Madison Street. We took a right.

"Lucky's one way to look at it?"

"Oh. Right. Look—coffee isn't for kids, is it?"

"No... it's kind of an adult beverage."

She looked quizzically at me as we walked. "Kind of."

"Yeah... I mean, it's not as dangerous as booze, but you still want to watch out. It can make you jittery."

"So it's more like an adolescent beverage."

I stifled a giggle, then thought better of it and giggled. "Sure, I guess."

She stopped walking. "That's what I'm getting at! It's in between! I think coffee's something just naughty enough that the writers didn't want to actually put it in the show, but innocent enough that they _imagined _us having it. And that's why we do have coffee, but it's obscure and exotic."

I considered this. "You know, the writers have done dozens of interviews... not to mention convention panels. I think they've even testified for scientists."

"Well, do the scientists have all this straight yet?"

I smiled glumly. "You know the answer to that."

"Then I can speculate. And if M. A. Larson were here right now, I'd do my best to plumb him."

I grinned. "I'd like to see that!"

She laughed back.

We reached the place, which was called Turtlewood Coffee, without further incident. From the outside, there was no sign of it catering to ponies except a sign in the corner of the window with the silhouette of a pony, two legs raised, and the words "PONY HOTSPOT".

"It's a hotspot," Peach observed.

"Let me know if it gets too hot for you," I replied.

It was nicely furnished—nice fake leather chairs and sofas, earthy wood walls and counter with green accents. And... yes. Somehow, I could smell them. I hadn't realized until that moment that Peach Spark had a smell, but she did, and this was more of it. It wasn't like the smell of horses at all.

She was beaming. "Someone's here," she uttered.

"Someone? Other ponies, you mean?" There were a handful of people at the tables and sofas, drinking or reading, but apparently they didn't count as someones.

"Yeah!" She had a wistful tone, as if this half a month on Earth had all been a confusing dream for her and she was just now waking up.

I nodded and peeked around the corner. Sure enough! Two stallions were there, one sea green and curvy with wings, one reddish purple with glasses. A mare, teal and shapely, sat with one leg swinging off the fake leather couch. They were talking quietly when I saw them, but all looked over when Peach Spark appeared.

"Hi!" said the green pegasus. He had crested lilac hair and was wearing a weathered denim vest.

"Hello there," remarked the earth mare. Blue mane and tail, tall glass of something tan on the coffee table before her.

"Hi," said Peach, trotting around me and taking them in. She seemed shy, but her shell was breaking. "I heard this was a hangout for Big Apple ponies."

"You heard right," said the purplish earth stallion. Red hair, broad figure, glass of something iced.

The teal mare nodded deeply. "Glad to have you!"

And the pegasus was on his feet. "So you thought you'd drop by? That's lovely! I'm Seaswell." His cutie mark was a giant ocean wave, stylistically rimmed in fun yellows and oranges.

"Peach Spark." She was grinning.

"I'm Kellydell," said the teal mare. Her cutie mark was an obelisk with a gem in it. "Is, uh... this a friend of yours?" She gestured toward me.

Peach turned back and indicated me. "Yeah, this is Ronald Pfeffer. He's been great helping me settle in."

They greeted me, and I said my pleased-to-meet-yous. I wasn't quite sure how to behave, though. Should I be treating them like new friends, or keeping out of the way to let the ponies do their thing? I didn't even know how to feel. If I was excited to meet Peach Spark, you might expect three times the excitement at meeting three new ponies, but somehow my feelings were mixed.

"So how long have you been in New York?" asked Seaswell.

"Actually, I'm in Jersey. Elizabeth. It's been a couple weeks."

"Are you straight from Equestria?" asked Kellydell.

Peach nodded humbly.

"Wonderful! I can practice on you. I'm working for the Interworld Tourism Board."

Peach seemed taken aback, as was I. "There is such a thing?" I asked.

"Well, it's new. There aren't any tours yet except for VIPs, but they're training folks on both sides. I used to give tours of Greenisle, and I was good enough doing that that they snapped me up!"

Seaswell leaned toward her, his legs like thick noodles. "And I tagged along!"

"As a good husband ought," said Kellydell, craning her head toward his until they touched.

The purple-red stallion cleared his throat. "I'm seeing the sights, taking in the auras, and learning about our friends on the other side of the Gate," he remarked with a nod my way.

Peach let out a happy sigh. "I'm just working for ThuneTec. It sounds like you're all here for more admirable reasons!"

Kellydell shrugged, and the purplish stallion snorted like only ponies can—which is to say, charmingly. "You've got it wrong—I'm the one doing the admiring." There was something out there about his voice.

Peach lifted a hoof to her chest. "Admiring what?"

He gestured to the whole room, maybe the whole city. "Everything! The whole scene. It's fantabulous, in case you aren't aware."

"New York, you mean?"

"Sure, but more. Human culture. The things they do, the notions they buy into. It's amazing stuff!"

Peach smiled and glanced back nervously at me. I ventured an answer: "I'm guess I'm glad you think so?"

The maroon stallion turned to face me with a bright grin. "Ronald, was it? It's a privilege to trot through your grand demesne."

"Uh... I... don't know how to take that. Not very much of it's mine," I replied sheepishly.

"It's in your veins, though! Brought up with a nice set of human values, weren't you?"

"Human values?" I laughed. "I'm not sure there's any such thing."

He nodded. "Well, that sort of quandary's just what I'm working on. When I'm done, I'll tell you if there's any such thing!"

He made me both uncomfortable and easy in my skin at the same time, which you'd think was impossible. I realized he hadn't given his name. "And you are...?"

"George. It's a pleasure, Ronald."

"...George?"

"George Harrison."

I burst out snickering. "Not exactly a pony name, is it?"

He only grinned more. "More or less the point! I figured while on Earth, I'd try on an Earth name. Besides, I never cared for my given one, and I won't tell you what it was, so don't try me."

I had to admit, he kind of had the haircut. Manecut. "You realize there was a famous human called George Harrison, right?"

"So I've heard."

I half expected his cutie mark to be a guitar or a sitar or something, but it was actually a balloony, colorful question mark, more yellow than anything else, but with each segment in a different pattern of colors. He caught me looking. "I'm a bit of a knowledge seeker," he explained.

"Groovy mark," I acknowledged.

He grinned again. "I've heard that word once or twice. What would your mark be, if you had one?"

I was caught completely off guard by the question. Maybe that was his specialty—unnerving questions. "No idea. Maybe a flowerpot."

"No," chided Peach, teasing me. "You're more than your job."

"Dunno, then!" But George was still watching me, waiting for an answer, and the others were watching, too. "Ahm—how about I leave you four alone for a while. So you can talk about... pony things."

Kellydell frowned, but George nodded understandingly. "We'll talk about all the pony things under the sun."

"Thanks, Pepper," murmured Peach. "I'll come and find you when we're done."

So that was that. I went back around the corner, ordered a latte and dropped Peach's raincoat over the back of a chair. Normally my _modus operandi_ at coffee shops involves scoping the place for likely girls, but there was no need for that now. Aside from the fact I was here with a friend, and the fact that Manhattan girls actually intimidated me a bit, I had plenty of questions to ponder while I sipped my drink. For example, is there really such a thing as "human values", and if so, what are they? Would ponies create the same lists of rights as our human rights organizations did? Maybe they already had. In the same vein, is there such a thing as pan-human culture? Which spots around the world would I pick if I had to lead a tour for ponies? And, not least of all, what _would_ my cutie mark be? What would I even want as a cutie mark?

Definitely not a flowerpot. Yeah, that'd been my most embarrassing moment. I felt like the rest of the encounter had gone pretty well, though. Now and then I could hear Seaswell's high-pitched voice rising in excitement, but I couldn't hear the rest.

I brought my cup back up to the front. "Waiting on your filly friend?" asked the barista.

I wanted to say, She's not my fillyfriend!-but that sounded juvenile in my head and besides, I didn't know if she'd meant it as one word or two. So I just said, "Yeah. I don't think she's met any other ponies her whole time here."

"Well, she's in the right place! We get about ten or fifteen semi-regulars, and there's a meet-up each week. It's kind of exciting."

I glanced at the meet-up flier. "Yeah, I guess it would be. How'd this place get into..."

"Becoming popular for ponies? Owner's decision. It's not as hard to attract ponies as it is other demographics. You really just spread the word a little, put out a sign that says 'Pony Friends Welcome', you're set." She smiled slyly. "They're suckers for friendship."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's some of the cutest racism I've ever heard."

She raised one back. "Yeah? Well, I try. Anything else for ya?"

I noticed a couple interesting items in the display case—a Fescue-Bluegrass Salad and a Daisy Marigold Wrap. Huh. But no, I was good. I nursed a cup of water until nature called, and then I discovered that this place didn't have restrooms for Men and Women—it had restrooms for Humans and Ponies. Just little single unit rooms, yet they still felt the need to specify which was which. I was... _really_ tempted to peek into the Ponies room to see what kind of special equipment was in there, but I'm glad to say decency prevailed.

Eventually Peach ambled into view, followed by her new friends.

"Hey Pepper, how's it going?" she called.

I waved halfheartedly. "You ready to go?"

She grinned back, where the green couple (Kellydell just a little bluer and darker than Seaswell) was waiting. "Actually... I've had an offer."

I felt my stomach drop and I didn't even know why. "Oh?"

"Seaswell here has a sky chariot," she said bashfully. "For taking Kellydell places. He was thinking... he could give me a ride."

I sat there breathing. "Oh, um... okay? So... you mean a ride home? So I'd go home alone?"

The peach-colored unicorn trotted up and studied me carefully. "You don't want me to do that, huh?"

"Well..." I felt torn. "It was our afternoon together, and..." And you just met this guy, I wanted to say. Who knows if he's a good enough flier not to drop you, let alone catch you if he does? But I couldn't say that with Seaswell right there, looking jaunty.

"I should go back with Ronald," Peach told the others. "But I'd love to try your chariot sometime, Seaswell! We'll have to get together again."

"We should do Staten Island sometime," suggested Kellydell—to Peach, not me. "And you have to see Times Square, at the very least! Come with me and you can help me polish my shopping tour."

"I'd love to," she said. Then she nodded to George, who was bringing up the rear. "I'll call."

"Nice meeting you," Seaswell told me on the way out.

"Likewise," I replied.

But it was George Harrison who offered to shake hoof-and-hand. "Counselor Pepper, I understand?"

I took his hoof and shook gently. "If you can take an Earth name, I'm willing to be saddled with a pony name." Oops—would he be upset I'd used the word 'saddled'?

He grinned. "We can make it Sergeant Pepper if you like."

Wow, I was just amassing titles. "That does sound better," I agreed.

"Be seeing you," he told me. "And I'll expect an answer on the cutie mark question when I do!"

I smiled nervously and gave a little wave.

The sun was out and working hard at drying up puddles when we left Turtlewood. Peach seemed really pleased. Relieved, even. For my part, I was happy for her yet confused in every other way.

Add this to my list of questions: if I'd happened to meet Kellydell and Seaswell in my apartment building, or George, would they now be as special to me as Peach Spark was? Or was there a reason I still felt she was my special friend aside from that happy accident? Would Peach just be one out of several, even dozens of pony friends, a few years down the line?

I sat across from her on the train, watching her peer out the window while lying on the seats. Somehow, I just couldn't imagine things going that way. But then again, a lot of unimaginable things were happening these days.


	5. The Wall Store

In the days that followed, I still spent my work shifts thinking of the pony upstairs, but now my thoughts were scrambled.

On Tuesday evening, I found a big yellow envelope in my mailbox, wedged up against the sides. I pried it out and looked it over on my way upstairs. "For Pepper," it said. There were colored stripes all up and down in it marker—no, in watercolors! And on the bottom, five cutie marks. Peach's, together with everyone's from Turtlewood Coffee, and one I hadn't seen before—an eye sprouting arrows both left and right.

My heart was already stirring when I opened the envelope. There were a letter and a drawing inside, and when I upended it, a clover fell into my hand. Followed by an extra clover leaf.

Once I'd made it to my apartment, I read the letter. It had five sections, each clearly written by a different pony. First was Peach's smooth hornwriting, in electric blue ink:

"Pepper! We missed you. I invited the gang from the coffee shop over and we were going to drop in and surprise you, but you weren't there. So we made this for you instead! Do you know about the stationery shop on Fulton? Kellydell took me there and we all got some things we needed.

I hope you enjoy the drawing! You remember Kellydell, Seaswell and George, don't you? The mare you didn't meet is called Second Sight. She's working in a lab for the New York Institute of Technology. They have her experimenting with remote detection. I hope you get to meet her soon! Is it okay if I come and see you Thursday?

—Peach Spark"

This was accompanied by a couple of glittery star-shaped stickers.

Then, in lavender gel and sharp, excited lettering:

"Hope work isn't being too hard on you! We missed you this time but I'm sure we'll meet again. Just to make sure, we've given you some extra luck! My amazing wife is always finding four-leafed clovers, and she found one in the little walking park near your building. It's enclosed! Sorry about one of the leaves falling off—you'll just have to take our word that it was a lucky clover to begin with!

—Sincerely, Seaswell"

In luscious green gel and a tight script:

"It was nice meeting you the other day, Pepper! Our regrets that you weren't in this time. We're getting to know Peach Spark, a pleasure we owe to you.

She seems to think there are secrets hidden in the human world that explain pony nature. I told her that sounds fairly out-there, but she's stalwart in her beliefs and I must respect that. Please tell her, though, that we're just neighbors with our own cultures and customs. Each of our civilizations is very much worth learning about, but the sort of arcane connections she's looking for simply aren't real. I expect she'll listen to you.

—Kellydell"

Then in soft pencil, with careful lettering:

"Hello, Mr. Pfeffer. I can only hope circumstance allows me to make a friend of you before my time on Earth is through. If I were as skilled as I someday hope to be, I would be able to reach out and determine whether you're having a nice afternoon. As it is, I can only wish you the best. For our part, we've been having a fine time about the town.

—A friend you haven't yet met, Second Sight."

Creepy. And in maroon ink, in an otherwise small script with huge loops:

"Regards, Sergeant! I like your city. It's got an old feel, but not the sort of vibration that makes you think things are falling apart behind you as you walk through. I look forward to visiting the north end. I even hear you've got a neighborhood called Frog Hollow! Can't miss a place with a name like that. Thanks for treating our pretty Peach Spark right, by the by. I think she could use more time with you, if you're open to it. I intend to do my best by her, myself. Cheers!

—George"

And then the drawing, done on high quality paper with oil pastels. It was the five of them outside the apartment building, smiling in the sun while cars drove by. I could tell it was a collaboration. It looked like their cutie marks had each been etched out with something sharp, revealing another color of pigment underneath. Clever. The one that must have been Second Sight was a yellow-brown unicorn mare with purple hair.

I stared at the group for awhile, lounging in my beanbag chair. They'd drawn big tall toothy smiles on themselves. It looked like they'd known each other for a lifetime.

Ponies. Were they something, or what? They'd hoped to find me at home, and when they didn't, they'd apparently centered their whole afternoon around making a nice way to say hello to me anyway.

I set the letter aside and set the clover and its extra leaf floating in a little dish of water. I relaxed into my beanbag chair but didn't turn on the TV. Instead, I just I sat there thinking. Did I _deserve_ to have friends like this?

Wednesday morning, I left a note in Peach's box:

"Thanks for the great letter and drawing! I love it. It's good to know people care. I work tomorrow until 6:30, but I'd be happy to see you afterward.

—Pepper"

\~/ \~/ \~/ \~/ \~/

No word Wednesday night, but that was okay. When calling a unicorn, I told myself, you take your time. As I finished up my shift on Thursday, though, I wondered whether I should pick something up on the way home to share with her. And was there anything I could bring to help pass the time? I'd found the colorful envelope adorably childish, but I didn't think bringing over a cherished children's book would send _quite_ the right message. But did that matter? Was message important at all, compared to sharing the things that matter to you with your friends?

That's the sort of thing I was thinking as I put away my uniform, clocked out, and walked back through the garden center to head for home. What I did not expect was to see the very pony of my thoughts standing there by the azalea rack behind the registers, scanning the crowd, her peach coat contrasting with the dark windows behind her. Yet there she was! By the time I'd processed her presence, she'd spotted me and was cantering toward me with a huge smile.

"Pepper!" She reared up and I froze. Her hooves landed slowly on my chest. It was meant to be a hug, I realized a little too late, so I hugged her. But it was awkward. She dropped down and looked up at me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I wanted to see your garden store. It's amazing!"

I knew there were people watching us, but anything I did would make it worse. "It's pretty ordinary, really."

She was surprised by that. She looked around and pointed toward a long row of shrubs leading up to the greenhouse. "Is _that_ ordinary? There must be a hundred of them."

I smiled uncomfortably. "It's just volume. You know... if you have a lot of something for sale, you make more money."

"So it's all about money?"

I paused and shrugged. This had gotten abstract fast. "Big stores usually are. Um, Peach, can we get out of here?"

She frowned. "Is something wrong?"

I smiled a little. "I just didn't expect to see you. I, um..." I struggled to find some way to say I didn't want to have to explain her to my coworkers.

"You're probably sick of being here after eight hours," she said. "Want to go to a _different_ big store and help me pick out a TV?"

I hadn't expected that. "You're getting a TV?"

She grinned. "I got my first paycheck yesterday! I'm so excited."

And just like that, I was excited too. This was excellent—I hadn't known what we'd be doing together. "Sure! I'd be glad to help you pick out a TV set."

"It's a whole set?!"

I couldn't keep myself from chuckling. "Kind of! Did you have a place in mind? Because there's a Walmart at the other end of the shopping center."

"Lead on," she said, turning toward the doors. I found her faith in me touching.

I felt a lot better once we were striding across the parking lot, headlights piercing the dusk like jumbo-sized lightning bugs. "That letter you stuffed in my box was amazing," I told her.

"Amazing? Really? I didn't think our art was _that_ good."

"Heh. Well maybe not, but... it was a collaboration, right? You all drew yourselves?"

"Not exactly." She chuckled, bobbing her head. "I actually drew George, and he drew Seaswell, and Seaswell painted the stripes on the envelope. Really, we all drew whatever we wanted. But we were working as a team."

"And you spent basically your whole visit with them making it, didn't you?"

I wasn't sure under the big parking lot lights, but I thought I spotted a blush. "It was what we focused our afternoon on."

"That's what makes it amazing," I told her.

She beamed and walked in silence.

We were greeted by a chubby middle-aged black woman who seemed especially pleased at the chance to say "Hi, and welcome to Walmart!" to a pony.

Peach was delighted back, for her part. "Thanks, I'm glad to be here!" she said, rearing up to smile right in the greeter's face.

We went inside. "Just so you know," I whispered to her, "the company that runs these stores is the biggest corporation in the world."

"Wow," she said, looking around. "I guess I'm not surprised. It's _huge!_ Is this place all about money, too?"

Again with the abstraction. I was tempted to say yes, but... "I don't know if a store is really _about_ anything, Spark."

"Hm," she acknowledged.

"But I don't think they're good for us. They hire cheap labor and buy products from overseas factories who hire even cheaper labor. And they drive local stores out of business."

Peach didn't seem to understand. "What's wrong with cheap labor? Cheap is good."

Was I really getting drawn into an economic discussion with a unicorn? I was no expert. "It means the people doing the work don't get paid enough to live on."

She wrinkled her muzzle. "Then how do they get by?"

"Maybe some of them can live on it. The ones without families to raise, mainly. Others get help from the government. Food stamps, and that kind of thing."

"Food... stamps?" I grimaced—I knew she was imagining people eating stamps for their nutritional content.

"You use them to buy food," I explained. "We don't like to let anyone starve."

Amazingly, this morbid downer of a discussion brought delight to her face. "So you really _do_ care!"

"About each other? Yeah. Yeah, we care. Maybe not enough, but we do care." I got a cart and headed for Electronics.

Before she could reply, Peach was distracted by the home furnishings department. "Oh gosh, look at that, look at that!" She ran off to lie on an ottoman at the foot of a recliner, two items among dozens on display. "It's like five living rooms all in a row!"

I sighed and wheeled the cart over. "Yep. Go on, get it all out."

She hooted and leapt into action. I watched as Peach ran about opening and closing cabinet doors, expanded an expandable desk, and tried out pretty much every chair in sight. There was a Walmart associate watching uneasily nearby, and when Peach started walking on a table, the associate finally started over. I sped over faster. "Off the table, Peach."

She got off, somewhat chided, and the associate decided to let things go, seeing, I presume, that a human had the excited pony in hand. "Sorry. I guess that's not for walking on."

"Yeah, no. Don't you have tables at home? And for that matter, furniture stores?"

She nestled herself in a big cozy chair. "Yeah, we do have a furniture store in Witherton. I guess it's about five living rooms at once, too, and a few bedrooms besides. But somehow..." She peered around. "Somehow this place is more exciting. I mean... the ceiling's higher... and there's all that extra furniture in boxes, just waiting for someone to need it! I mean, don't you feel the excitement?"

I tried to gauge how I felt. Honestly, I was jaded by places like this. "That's kind of what the big box stores do. They try to thrill you with volume. Warehouse stores, even more."

"Are you saying they're trying to trick me?" asked Peach.

"Well... not directly? Look." I sat down in a chair opposite her. "Any time you go into a store, or pass by a storefront, or even look at an ad, _someone's_ trying to trick you. They're trying to get you to spend your money on something you might not have spent it on otherwise, by making it sound more exciting than it really is."

She frowned, hurt. "So it's all a trick?" She hopped out of the chair and gestured around her. "All this is just a trick?"

"You might say that. I mean really, it's just retail. That's the way it is. You get stuff cheap, but there's a price to society. Every now and then, the legislature tries to ban stores like this from the state. But it never works—they're just too useful."

Now Peach looked confused. "It's so complicated."

"I've barely scratched the surface."

"All this furniture is so tall."

I laughed. "Your legs aren't long enough."

She went over and patted the ottoman. "I kind of like this one, though. It seems kind of pony-friendly. I mean, I can't imagine a human lying on it."

"I could sit on it... but really, it's more of a foot rest."

"A what? A foot rest? Wait. You mean you stand on it?"

I grinned. "You sit in a chair, like this, and put your feet on it, like this." I demonstrated.

She stared at me. "That's so _weird!_" she exclaimed happily. Then she checked the price tag. "I can afford this. I think I might want it! It'd be like an enigma in my living space."

If that was how sh e wanted to think of it, I wouldn't stop her. "Well, the question is, can we get it back home on the bus along with a TV set? Can you carry it?"

Blue magic gathered around the ottoman, and that same floor associate looked nervous again. I guess she was afraid to offend a pony customer. The ottoman rose a foot or so before Peach had to set it down. "I'm a lot better with small stuff," she admitted, embarrassed.

"Let's get that TV," I suggested. "We can make another trip for this thing some other time."

"Okay," Peach agreed, following me back toward Electronics. "Besides, I have to save some money for my big shopping tour with Kellydell! We're doing it Saturday."

"Sounds exciting! Any idea what you're gonna get?"

"Well, probably a bunch of clothes! And maybe jewelry. I guess we'll have to make sure it's nothing we can't carry back."

I found myself hoping Kellydell knew what she was doing. "Just make sure you keep enough money to make rent," I advised.

"Oh, I will." Suddenly, Peach looked up at me. "I must seem pretty naïve, huh? Running around like that, excited about all this stuff you're used to?"

"Yeah, a little." And if I was being honest, I might as well go all in. "I admit, when you were doing that, I found myself asking... 'How did I get myself into this?'" At that, her eyes got a little teary, and I went on. "But then I realized... the corners of my mouth were up, and I was happy. I'm really glad you're my friend, Sparky."

She grinned and gave me a quick hug around the waist. "You're not so shabby yourself. Want to know what the dumb little filly in me was thinking?"

I wasn't so sure. "If it's not too embarrassing."

"I was thinking... What do you guys need fantasies for, if you've got all this stuff?"

Whoa. "Really?"

"Yeah. Pretty dumb, huh?"

"Because stuff isn't everything?" I asked.

"Yeah. I _know_ stuff isn't everything. But in the heat of the moment..."

"It tricked you, didn't it?"

She winked. "Yeah. Your big Wall store tricked me." That's when we reached Electronics and were faced with a massive wall of television sets. "Oh, Celestia!" Peach exclaimed. "They're in color! They're all in color!"

I hurried to keep up. "You were expecting black and white?"

"I dunno, I guess I wasn't thinking about it. The closest we have back home is black and white movies, and Witherton doesn't even have a theater." She looked hopefully at me. "Do you think we could get them to play the show?"

The show. Coming from a pony's mouth, anyone would know what that meant.

They were willing, all right. TVs were big ticket items, and the sales team was willing to cater in order to make a sale. Without asking her outright, the first man to talk to Peach made sure she actually had money. Once that was established, they treated her like a big fish wiggling on a hook. They told her the advantages of plasma, widescreen, HD and so on, and she ate it all up, trusting everything. It was as if the very idea of being taken advantage of didn't cross her mind.

\~/ \~/ \~/ \~/ \~/

We stood together, watching an episode from the second season filled with lava, a dismal rocky landscape and a yellow sky. I could feel Peach quivering at one point in sympathy for poor little Spike, a baby dragon trying desperately to prove his worth among much larger teenagers. I'd forgotten how good this episode was. Off to the side, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Rarity watched over Spike in a gaudy costume, trying to pass themselves off as a grown dragon, and somehow succeeding.

Peach snerked beside me. "That costume is ridiculous!"

I couldn't help laughing with her. "It sure is!" Yet something occurred to me. "But isn't it weird you think so? I mean... I mean, all this really happened, right?"

She spared me her attention. "Of course! Everything on the show really happened. Those dragons really did play Lava Cannonball with Spike, and he really did tail-wrestle his friends in a stupid costume."

"And the gang fell for it, because the costume just happened to look exactly like some developmentally stunted dragon called Crackle."

"They did! It's amazing what people will believe if they don't know they should be skeptical."

"And yet... and yet... I mean, if that kind of thing can happen in Equestria, how can _you_ think their costume is ridiculous?"

Peach gave me an odd look. "Well, it is!"

"Then how did it fool anyone?"

She sighed. "Look, Pepper." I waited while she gathered her thoughts. "The stars of the show... the Mane Six. They're not typical. You know that, right?"

I had to confess I hadn't thought of it. "Well, yeah, I guess. They're heroes."

"They're heroes," agreed Peach. "And they're completely bonkers." She chuckled nervously. "I mean, some of the time they're all heroic with their unique and wonderful qualities, and at other times, they just lose their minds. Remember that time Pinkie went crazy just because no one came to one of her parties? Or the time Applejack kept checking in on her little sister every five minutes because she was terrified she'd break something?"

I was hardly paying attention to the TV anymore. "Yeah?"

"Well, we're not all _like_ that!" pressed Peach. "I've never met Twilight or any of the rest of them, and I've never been to Ponyville. And I mean, we've got our eccentrics in Witherton and in Long Hedge, but not like _them_. Most of us are actually... you know, stable!"

"I didn't mean to offend you," I said.

"You didn't! I just... I want you to know."

We watched Spike being inducted as a true dragon. Soon, he'd be forced to make a moral decision—stick with his new gang, or protect innocent phoenixes from predation. "I guess it makes sense. You don't make documentaries about ordinary, everyday people. Or sitcoms either, for that matter."

"Exactly!" agreed Peach. "Well, you can... but our world isn't one of those shows! I mean, I guess I'm saying..." She had to sit and think for a while before she knew what she was saying, though, so I sat down on the floor next to her until she did.

"We're only as weird as we had to be," said Peach.

I looked at her, puzzled.

"You made this kids' show with all these crazy adventures, these main characters who represent extreme ideas like Loyalty and Generosity and who do crazy things... and we're the world you got to go with it. Yes, we've got all that wacky stuff... magic potions and dragons and breezies and... and supervillains... and..." She looked at her own rear. "...And cutie marks."

"There's nothing wacky about cutie marks," I interrupted.

"You know what I mean," she pressed, although I'm not sure I did. "We've got all this wild stuff, yes, it's all real... but..." The look she gave me was almost contrite. "...We're about as normal as we can possibly be, considering."

I felt like I was in the presence of something profound, but I just couldn't get it through my thick skull. Instead, I did my best. I hugged her. I sat there on the vinyl Walmart floor and I hugged my unicorn friend. And the salespeople let us be. The show came to an end, and the demo reel resumed, and they left us alone. I saw a tear in Peach's eye, and I wanted to wipe it away. Instead, I patted her shoulder in reassurance.

\~/ \~/ \~/ \~/ \~/

We ended up getting both a TV and a notebook computer. Peach really wanted a nice television set, since she saw it as a major part of the puzzle she was trying to solve. She needed to understand television if she was going to understand what she and her people were meant to be, and I respected that even if I didn't quite agree with her metaphysics. I suggested that if she got an internet connection and an HDMI adapter, she could stream net content onto her TV, and she went for it. Her paycheck hadn't been big enough to get it all at once, though, let alone save money for shopping with Kellydell, so I charged the TV to my credit card. Peach promised to pay me back.

"They're really nice here," she remarked as we headed outside. "They didn't get tired of me asking questions, and they gave a lot of really helpful suggestions! Best of all, even though we didn't have enough money to pay for it all today, they're happy enough to just tell a plastic card that we owe them the rest! I know you have issues with them, Pepper, but I love the Wall Store."

"It's Walmart," I corrected. "And that plastic card isn't really a risk for them. I mean, they got their money—it's the credit card people we owe now."

"Really? I don't know. I'm just bowled over, Pepper! There's so many people happy to loan us money that we haven't even met!"

"And that doesn't seem dangerous to you?"

"Dangerous?" Peach wrinkled her nose, levitating the computer out the sliding doors. "How can being nice to people be dangerous?"

I hefted the box containing the TV set from the cart and walked after her. "If you keep offering loans to people, they may borrow more than they can afford to pay. And then they get clobbered paying interest."

"Right, I understand what interest is, I think. But that's just the choice you make when you take the loan! If it's not a good idea, you can just say no, right?"

I grunted. "Yeah, in theory. But people do get exploited, Sparky."

She walked thoughtfully, looking around the dark parking lot. The computer she was holding bobbed erratically in the air.

"Look," I said. "These are heavy, and they're obviously brand new and expensive. I don't want to take them home on the bus. Can we get a cab?"

"A cab? But what's wrong with the bus? We can put them down once we get on."

"Someone could steal them," I said sharply.

I guess I stunned her out of her reverie. Put things in perspective. "Oh. That's a big thing, here?"

I shrugged. "We're kind of asking for it," I said.

She dipped her head for a moment, but eventually looked up. "Fine," she decided. "I'll pay. I only rode once in a cab before, and never with a friend! This'll be fun."

I put down the TV and stooped to cuddle her supportively. I wanted to say I was sorry for everything cynical I'd said that night—for every sliver of doubt in humanity I'd had the gall to instill in her. Instead, I just smiled a broad smile and told her, "Yeah. It'll be fun. Let's do it."

But it was a quiet ride home.


	6. Make-Believe

[+]

ANOTHER FRIDAY NIGHT and there I was at home, waiting for my soup to cook and stirring occasionally. My friend Laurie, who'd helped me get hired by the garden center and skeddadled a year later, had just picked up her phone.

"Hey, Laurie," I said.

"Ron? Been a while."

"Yeah. I guess it has."

"You all right?" she asked.

Of course, Laurie was the type to ask. Even so, it felt a little strange she was assuming something was wrong just because I called.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I let my voice betray a little happiness. "I was just wondering... you know where all the best produce is, right?"

"Uhhhh... I guess so?"

"I mean, I know you're a locavore, you're all into eating locally. Locavorishly."

Making fun of the word was a little joke between us. "Yeaaahh?" she prompted.

"But I thought maybe you might know where to get the best imports, too. Like maybe it goes together."

"How do local foods and imports go together?"

"Um, like, ideally you want the freshest food available, right? But if something isn't available locally, you want to get it as fresh as possible from somewhere else?"

"Locavorism isn't just about freshness, Ron. It's about sustainability."

"Right," I said, willing to take a lecture if Laurie felt like giving it. It was nice to hear her voice.

"No matter how you transport food, it takes a toll on the environment," she continued.

"Right, sure."

There was a pause. I could tell she wanted to go on, but my agreeability was making it tough for her. "What is it you want, anyway?"

I smiled. "Peaches."

She snorted. "So buy some peaches, Ron. I'm not stopping you."

"But where can I get the best peaches? The freshest? And maybe without pesticide?"

Her voice had a certain disbelief to it. "You know-I don't know. Peaches come out in the summer, I'm pretty sure." And it was June, so summer wouldn't be long in coming. "You might just want to wait. What do you need 'em for?"

"A friend of mine. She's from a warmer climate and doesn't like the supermarket peaches that much. I was just wondering if we could do any better."

"Huh! Well that's interesting. I assume it's no one I know?"

"Nah, she's a new friend."

"What's her name?"

I blushed. "Peach."

After a moment, Laurie chuckled nervously. "Reeeally."

"Mm-hm."

"She's named Peach and she wants better peaches."

"Yeah, well. It's more like I want to surprise her with them."

"Ahhh. You mean, because of her name? Sort of, a personalized produce kind of thing?"

"Basically," I answered, and I knew she could hear my embarrassment.

She named a few stores I could try-a couple small markets and a suggestion to try the organics section at a chain or two. "Look for '100% Organic', not just the word 'organic'. And if the fuzz is still on 'em, so much the better-just wash before you eat 'em."

"Thanks, Laurie."

"If there's no rush, Ron, I'd wait a month or so. Better chance they'll be fresh that way."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"So which warm climate is she from, anyway?"

Oops. I'd hoped she wouldn't ask. "Equestria."

Yeah, that was a long pause.

"Well, I guess that explains the name," she finally said.

"Yeah," I agreed.

There was another pause. I stirred the soup.

"You know, I would make an exception for Equestrian produce," said Laurie. "I would _love_ to taste an Equestrian apple, or a peach, sure. Anything."

"But they don't let it through, do they?"

"Nope. Nada. Fears of cross-contamination, which, frankly, are totally reasonable. That's another thing you have to worry about when you import most of your produce."

"Are they worried about our fruit going magical?"

"Maybe. Sure, wouldn't you worry? It sounds like a joke, but who knows what might happen if—" She cut herself off. "Ron, are you sweet on her?"

First Noam, and now Laurie. I'd thought that, just maybe, talking about produce would distract her, but... "Not really, no. I just really care about her."

"Well that's wonderful. Does she care about you?"

"I think so. Yeah, definitely."

"That's great, Ron. Am I gonna meet her?"

I hadn't even thought of that. "Sure, if you want to. You want to come to my place, or..."

"Oh, come to our place. It's bigger, and we can make dinner." Laurie and her boyfriend Jack lived in a townhouse.

"You sure Jack'll be okay with it?" He was the one person I knew who'd had the biggest trouble accepting the reality of a fictional world back when it had first hit the news. He cracked jokes about ponies like some people make jokes about God. Uncomfortably.

"He's always chill with new friends."

"Well, if you say so. Weekends still good for you?"

"Yeah. Why don'tcha check with Peach and let me know when you can come. It'll be good to see you again."

"Will do. And I think I will wait for summer before getting those peaches."

"Okay. And Ron?"

"Mm?"

"Be careful, all right?"

I was about to say sure, but then I wondered why she was asking. "Be careful?"

"Yeah. Just in case."

"Just in case what?"

"I don't know, okay? I'm just a little worried about you. You stop calling, and then suddenly when I hear from you, you're trying to find the best way to a pony's heart?"

"Are you worried about cross-contamination?" I joked.

"Of course not."

"You're worried I might go all magical."

"I don't even know what that means."

"Neither do I, really." I stirred the soup. "All right, Laurie. I'll ask Peach if she wants to do dinner and I'll let you know."

"...Okay, Ron. Take care, though."

"Okay. I will."

"Talk to you later."

"G'bye."

Be careful of what? I wondered. Take care of what? What exactly was she worried would happen to me?

^.^ ^.^ ^.^ ^.^ ^.^ ^.^

When I knocked on the door, I heard scrambling. That's one little difference about humans and ponies that you don't think of at first. When they scramble, you can always hear it. It's hard not to make noise with four hooves on the floor, and it was hard for me not to think of it as cute. So I indulged and grinned.

"Pepper?" she called from inside.

"Yep! You don't mind a surprise visit, do you?"

"Nope! One moment!"

I knew why she didn't open the door right away—she was turning off the television. When she did open it, she leapt right up on me, just like at the garden center. This time I didn't hesitate to hug her.

"How's it going, Peach?" In the moment after I asked, I regretted it. She was smiling, but there were lines under her eyes—she'd been crying.

"I'm all right. I've been watching stuff. And surfing the superhighway."

"The information superhighway?"

"Yeah, that one." She lowered herself delicately. "C'mon in."

I saw boxes on the floor, stuffed with packaging. We'd set up the television and the computer together, and she still hadn't thrown out the packaging—just in case she wanted to return them, I guessed. I also saw something else I hadn't expected, covered with electronics.

"You went back and got the ottoman!" I observed.

"Yeah." She sat bashfully. "I figured I couldn't ask you to take me there twice, so I got Seaswell to help me."

I pictured this for a moment. "You mean this piece of furniture flew through the sky on a chariot to get here?"

"Yep!" she answered proudly. "We werent able to get it in through the window, though. It was just too awkward, so we had to take the elevator."

It was so strange, thinking about how much trouble this thing I could easily lift had been for two ponies to transport. A typical pony could pull a pretty heavy cart, but couldn't easily _carry_ anything larger than a book... unless they were a pegasus, in which case it was ridiculous how much weight they could haul by air. I'd read a column about pegasus physics that still boggled me.

I cleared a space on one side of the ottoman—it was cluttered with odds and ends, including a circuit board. "You could have called me, you know. I wouldn't have minded."

She looked sorry. "Kellydell said her husband would be happy to help, so." She shrugged.

"Oh yeah! Saturday was your big shopping tour with Kellydell, wasn't it?"

Instantly, Peach perked up. "Yep! SoHo and the East Village!"

"Not Staten Island?"

"She said it was too big to cover if we wanted to do anything else. So we're saving that for my next paycheck."

A twinge of apprehension. "You'll be paying me back for the television, though."

"Oh, well yeah! But you said it was okay if it was in installations, right?"

"If it has to be... but it's on my Discover card. I'm paying interest."

She frowned. I immediately felt like a miser. "Is interest that important?" she asked.

I sighed. "Well, if you want to cover it, it's up to you. But you should watch your money, Peach. Are you planning to go shopping with Kellydell in every neighborhood in New York?"

"Well not every neighborhood," she admitted, looking down at her remote control. "We probably aren't going to bother with Queens. And we're just going to window shop through Madison Avenue."

"Even so, can you really afford it?"

"It's not just for stuff," she said, looking up. "And it's not just for me. It's for Kelly! She needs feedback so she can fine-tune her tours."

It was interesting, I thought, that she'd answered a question about affordability with an statement about helping others.

"Fine," I said, stretching my legs. "How were SoHo and the East Village?"

"Fantastic," she replied. "I loved the atmosphere! Kellydell told me all about how they've changed, the bohemian parts and the gentrified parts, and it was fascinating. We barely have this kind of thing in Equestria!"

"What kind of thing? Bohemians and gentrification?"

"Yeah, basically! I mean, I guess Manehattan is pretty much—" But her line of thought disturbed her, so she changed tack. "You want to see what I got?"

"Of course!"

"Then give me a few minutes to dress, and I'll give you a fashion show!"

I grinned. "Absolutely."

Peach dashed off to the closet, and I wondered how she was going to change privately in her studio apartment, until I remembered that she wasn't wearing any clothes to begin with. Yet I still felt the need not to watch while she was dressing herself. Ponies were weird!

Heh. No, clothes were weird.

I glanced at the TV and was startled for a moment. Then I chortled. I chortled again, louder, and Peach couldn't help but notice. "What are you laughing at?" she asked from across the room.

"You're watching Mister Rogers!" There he was, on pause, holding up a picture of a French horn for the audience. Sweater and all.

"Oh yeah!" She laughed too. "That guy's great. I wish I were his neighbor."

I hadn't intended to look at Peach while she was dressing, but now I had to sneak a peek. I caught her with one sleeve on, beaming with admiring eyes. It was worth it. I looked back at the TV.

"You've been watching a lot of his show?"

"I found a website with all the episodes," she said. "Is he any relation to Amy Keating?"

"Huh?" That took me a moment. "Oh. No, I'm pretty sure not."

"Ah, too bad. I was hoping. But yeah, I've been marathoning them. I've got to say, I kind of needed it."

Uh oh. "Yeah? How come?"

"Eh," she answered, trying to be nonchalant about whatever had made her cry. "Just stuff on the internet. Stuff made by you guys about ponies. Music videos. Stories about the princesses. Comics. Pictures." She heaved a breath.

"Oh, gosh. Anything bad?"

"Not really! I mean, yeah. I don't know if it was bad or good, Pepper. It's just weird. It's all _so_ weird."

"I know. I know. It's weird for us, too."

"I was gonna take it slow! But I got carried away." She sighed. "Anyway, it's gonna be a lot to sort out, you know? I can only take so much at once."

"Absolutely, take it slow. I can help, if you want. I wasn't part of the fandom, but I might be able to give context."

"I appreciate it," she said through tears starting to form. "So, anyway, that's when I started watching House of Cards."

Oh god. "That Netflix show about corrupt politicians?"

There was a tiny pause. "I guess?"

"You guess?"

"Is that what it is? Corrupt politicians? So... they're meant to be worse than average?"

My stomach tightened. "Yeah. Yes, Peach, our politicians are not that bad. Well okay, some of them are. But... well, look, I haven't seen the show, but I know it plays up the corruption."

"_Why?_"

Her question caught me off guard. "For drama! For... excitement. To tell an exciting story."

"Is that really what drama means to you? You can't have excitement without people betraying and framing each other?"

"Peach..."

"The main character is so charming, he can win anyone over. But he's the worst of the bunch!"

"It's just a TV show, Peach! It's meant to get a reaction. If you don't like how it makes you feel, you shouldn't have kept watching!"

I heard her clopping over to me. "But I have to watch, Pepper," she said softly over my shoulder. "This is what I'm here for. I have to understand."

I turned around. She was wearing a green long-sleeved V-necked shirt, a purple flowing skirt, and a flashy silver sash. The colors and fabrics seemed to work okay together, but the fit wasn't great. I looked her over for a while until she slinked back nervously.

"Peach... those aren't pony clothes, are they?"

She spoke meekly. "Not exactly. There's only a couple boutiques with pony sizes so far, and one's in Midtown and the other's in Brooklyn. Then there are tailors, but we didn't have time for them, so Kelly helped me find some clothes that fit okay even if they were made for women."

I sighed. "Well, they do look good on you, considering. But do you really _need_ clothes?"

"No," she squeaked. "But I... I want them..."

"I'm sorry," I hastened to say. "No, of course. If you want clothes, you should have them. And for that matter, if you want to watch human beings being our worst to each other on TV, you can do that too."

She adjusted her shirt at the shoulder and pointed to the television. "After a while, I found this guy. Can we watch for a while? You and me?"

I'd wanted to hug her, but this was even better. I made space on the ottoman for her and sat down on the floor beside her once she'd settled in. Soon we were safe in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

We didn't talk at first. I learned over and draped my arm over her, wondering if it was too much. She snuggled into it, so I knew it wasn't.

Eventually, Mister Rogers went to a pencil factory. "It's amazing, seeing how you humans make things," observed Peach. "So many big machines, working all on their own. And yet, you say there's no magic going on."

I reflected. "I wouldn't expect to hear that from you, of all ponies."

"How come?"

"You work with electricity. It's right there in your cutie mark. You know what kinds of things it's capable of."

"Yeah, but—"

She didn't finish.

"But what?"

She stirred beside me and took a deep breath. "I'm not so sure electricity isn't magic."

I looked at her. She'd taken off her clothing—all that was left was an electric blue anklet on her hind leg that matched the spark in her cutie mark, which I hadn't seen when she'd had the skirt on. Funny how I'd hardly even noticed her undressing. The girl I'm watching TV with takes off all her clothes, and I don't even look over. Does that mean I'm hopeless, or that I don't think of her as a girl, after all?

"Really?" I asked.

"I know you know the science behind it. I know some of it myself. Electrons pass from one valence shell to the next because of electromagnetic force. That makes current happen. But does anyone really know why electromagnetism happens?"

"Beats me," I admitted. On the screen before us, pencils all but assembled themselves neatly into boxes. "It's the same force that makes light, I think."

"Yeah, that's what Second Sight said. It propagates in a vacuum. But they call it a fundamental force because no one really knows why it happens. They can say _how_ but they don't know _why_."

"So you think electromagnetism could be magic?"

"I don't think so. I mean, it's in everything. If it's magic, does that mean everything's magic?"

"That'd definitely be confusing."

"Exactly. No... electromagnetism isn't magic. But I think maybe when we use it for our own machines, we're _doing_ magic."

I withdrew my arm, unconsciously stroking her coat as I did. She didn't seem to mind. "How so? I mean, we're just using little effects and building them into something bigger."

"You say that like it's nothing. Isn't that what thinking is? Isn't that what imagination is?"

"I don't get it. What if it is?"

I felt Peach's hoof on my shoulder. "Magic is about imagination," she told me.

This was getting heavy enough that I wanted to pause the show. I would have, except it was at that moment the little red trolley started chugging, and we were drawn off into the land of make-believe. The timing was too perfect to stop watching. "It is?"

She pushed my shoulder a little. "Don't you know that?"

I took her ankle in my hand. "No. I didn't."

"Magic is about what you want to happen! It's about taking your imagination and making it real."

"So... when you levitate something, it's because what you imagine is for that thing to be off the ground?"

"Sure, basically."

I smiled. "That's an awfully specific thing to be imagining all the time!"

With a blue glow, the fingers of my hand opened up, freeing her ankle. I could have resisted, but didn't choose to. "I'm not that good at levitation, you know," said Peach. "My real magical talent is shaping things."

Well, this was getting exciting. "Shaping things?"

"Yeah. Like metal. Or silicone. Making things flow the right way. And I'm a lot better with small stuff than anything big."

The way she said that made me shiver—for a moment, I wondered if I was getting turned on. "Like circuit boards."

"For example. But I can do art! I can draw a picture on a grain of rice. I used to sell those back home!"

I grinned. "I'd love to see that."

She got up. "Let's do it. I've got rice in the cupboard."

I went straight to the cupboards. When I saw a blue aura opening one of them, I reached up and pushed it shut on a lark.

"Hey!" Her magic fought me, but my muscles won. I glanced down to see Peach looking miffed.

"Sorry. I just wanted to see if I could!"

Her expression broke. "You don't fight a unicorn's magic!" she laughed.

"I wasn't really fighting," I explained. "Just testing."

There was a pregnant silence. Then Peach widened her stance and tried again to open the cupboard. I sprang for it, but she managed to squeeze the box of rice through the crack. We both laughed awkwardly, not at the same time.

Triumphantly, Peach strode forward and placed a grain of rice on a cutting board. "Well, don't fight this. What picture do you want?"

I glanced at the television. "How about King Friday and Queen Sara, in their castle?"

"Perfect."

I watched Peach Spark in awe as she labored, deep in concentration. Her horn glowed, as did and the grain of rice. I I saw her magic swirl, but the grain didn't seem to move.

"Kings and queens," she muttered. "That's the sort of thing you like to make believe about, isn't it?"

"Mm, I guess. We have them in a lot of our fairy tales."

As she worked, I could see tiny flecks of orange appearing amid the blue. "But you have them in real life too, don't you?"

"Some countries, yeah. But not the kind you get in stories." Only then did I realize what she was probably driving at, and I regretted what I'd said.

"Princesses are even better, right?" she asked, still concentrating on the grain of rice.

I was silent at first. "Yeah," I whispered.

She looked at the television for a moment, where King Friday was telling Daniel the tiger that because clocks were no longer allowed in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, he would have to find a new home. Then she resumed her work silently.

"I wish I knew what you were thinking," I admitted.

"Just wondering if you guys are jealous of our princesses," she replied.

I wasn't sure what to say. "I guess a lot of people dream of benevolent monarchs. I mean, monarchs with absolute power, not like the ones today. But it's risky. I mean, we used to have kings and queens like that, but if they aren't benevolent—if they're even just badly advised, it can spell disaster." She only glanced up for half a second. "Nowadays," I went on, "if someone has absolute power, we call them a dictator. And we try to take it from them."

"That's interesting," said Peach. "You wish you were better people, huh?"

I shrugged. "Who doesn't?"

She created one last little orange spark, then looked up. "Done." Her magic retrieved a big magnifying glass from one of her shelves, which she floated over to me. I took a look at the grain of rice.

It was etched with a line drawing, all right. The faces were crude, but there were the king and queen, and there were the lines of their tower, with the familiar "XIII" beneath. It was amazing how fine those lines had to be. "Wow."

"You like it? I ought to know what they look like by now, I've seen like a dozen episodes."

I sat up and looked at her in bewilderment. "That's some talent! I can't get my head around how you keep track of all those tiny lines."

"That's what I'm talking about, Pepper! I _wanted_ the rice to look like that, so I just made what was in my head real. That's magic for you! And that's what your big machines do, too. You want pencils? They make pencils for you. You want paper clips or pants or radios or pretzels or roller skates? They'll make those, too. And you say a machine that can do all that isn't magic?"

I put down the magnifying glass. "Is it magic if I take one of those pencils and draw a picture?"

She stared at me.

"Seriously, Sparky. Is that magic?"

She sighed. "I don't know. Maybe it is, in some small way."

A piece of me still couldn't believe I was having this conversation with a unicorn. "You don't really know what magic is, do you?"

Peach spread her forelegs. "I used to! But things have changed."

Licking my lip, I picked up the cutting board with the carved grain of rice and set it on the counter.

"Keep it," said Peach. "It's yours! A gift from me to you."

I grinned. "Really? Thanks. I'll think of you whenever I see it."

"You want to watch another episode?" asked Peach, swishing her tail at the television.

I glanced at the clock. "I should actually be going. It's late, and I didn't mean to stay too long."

"Awww. When will I see you again?"

It felt odd, but good. She'd never asked that before while we were together—we'd both just trusted to notes and fate. Fortunately, I had a good answer. "Well, as it happens, I told my friend Laurie about you. She's interested in having us over for dinner. She and her boyfriend Jack will host, and she's a good cook. Are you interested?"

Peach brightened and stood taller. "Of course! It would be great to meet your friends."

"I was thinking a week from Sunday?"

A little frown. "I hope we'll get together again before that."

My heart melted. "Then let's count on it." I wanted to suggest something for us to do, something more exciting than just another evening in. Bowling? Instantly I pictured a pony with a bowling bowl stuck over its hoof, looking put out. But then I remembered the Bowling Dolls from Season Two and realized that ponies actually did go bowling. Still, would that be the kind of thing Peach would enjoy? Or would it seem like I was trying too hard?

It seemed like Peach was also strugging for something to suggest. Were we making this too hard? Should we just keep visiting each other in the evenings after work, or whenever we both had the day off? Given how much there still was to learn about each other, would that be enough to keep things fresh?

I was spared. From the television floated the unpolished but reassuring notes of Mister Rogers' opening theme song:

"It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood; a beautiful day for a neighbor!"

Before the first verse was done, I was half-singing along, gesturing to Peach and hamming it up:

"Would you be mine? Could you be mine?"

She grinned and chuckled. Sitting down and stretching tall, she sang:

"It's a neighborly day in this beautywood; a neighborly day for a beauty! Would you be mine? Could you be mine?"

Now I was grinning too. "I've always wanted to have a neighbor just like you." I held out my hand gracefully. "I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood... with you!"

She hesitated at first, but then plopped her hoof into my hand. "So let's make the most of this beautiful day!"

I lowered myself slowly to one knee. "Since we're together... we might as well say..."

We looked into each others' faces, trying to mutally fight off the giggles as we sang together:

"Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be... my neighbor?"

I released her hoof and straightened up. "Won't you please?"

She gazed up plaintively at me. "Won't you please?"

I met her eyes as we finished together: "Please won't you be... my neighbor?"

Somehow, that had made everyting all right. I couldn't remember what I'd been fretting over before. "I'll see you, Sparky."

"See you soon, Pepper." Neither of us could get the smiles off our faces.

It was a good note to leave on, so I went for the door. I gave her a little wave as I left. "Enjoy the show!"

"Oh I will," she replied.

As I took to the hallway, I marveled at what had just happened. What had all _that_ been? Had that been a pinch of whatever magic made Equestrians occasionally break out in song? Did ponies bring it with them?

No—I preferred to think it had just been a particularly inspired, particularly _harmonious_ moment between the two of us. But what did it mean? Were we in a romance now? I'd knelt on the floor and taken her hoof in my hand—how could that be anything _but_ romance? And yet, we hadn't been singing about that kind of relationship at all—just about being neighbors.

The truth was, just being neighbors with a real life pony was exciting enough.

As I returned to my apartment, my mind turned to a fantasy. The president stood before Princess Celestia, awkwardly singing "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" to her while she waited patiently on a pillow. And when he was finished, she nodded, her eyes sparkling. "Absolutely, Mr. President. The ponies of Equestria would love to be your neighbors."

"Then we have a deal," said the president, offering his hand.

"We have a deal," said Celestia, shaking it.

It was a fantasy I would revisit many times that night.


	7. Kale and Marshmallows

AFTER THAT WEIRD, beautiful night, I genuinely started to wonder whether I should tell people I had a girlfriend. How often do you just break out into song with someone? How could it _not_ mean something? Or is that just what you get for hanging out with ponies?

All through work the next day, I played through the potential conversation with my mother over and over, trying to gauge the chance that my girlfriend's species would come up and how she would react if it did. I thought of asking Laurie whether she thought Peach and I were a unit now based on available evidence, but decided Laurie and I didn't have quite that kind of friendship. I also considered asking Peach herself, but I was afraid of what answer I might hear. I wasn't even sure whether I was more afraid of a 'yes' or a 'no'.

Like a shy kid waiting for a 'Do you like me' note back, I came home Saturday afternoon hoping for a note in my mailbox. Well, I got one, and a flier besides!

The flier was black ink on yellow and looked home-printed. "PONY FIELD TRIP", it proclaimed in a highly stylized font, flanked by pictures of a picket fence. Below were illustrations of pony heads―actual pony heads, I meant―no―god, it was confusing thinking about things these days. Miniature horses. What we used to call ponies. Fine-lined digital illustrations of heads with long muzzles and small, whiteless eyes.

"Curious what the word 'pony' used to mean? Join Red Rover and Uncle Clyde on Sunday, June 10th for a visit to Markowski Ranch in spacious Colts Neck, NJ. Rancher Janine Markowski will give a tour of this working ranch oriented toward pony guests. (Humans welcome too!) Followed by dinner near the shore at Red Bank's Siam Garden, or wander on your own and meet up later. $20 a head." Below, it gave a phone number for reservations and directions for where to board the bus.

Paperclipped to it was a note from Peach. ''Red Rover was one of the first ponies on Earth! He's a vice president in Kellydell's touring company. I have to see Terran ponies, Pepper! Kellydell doesn't want to come, but George will. Will you come too?"

'Terran ponies' was another term for what we used to call just 'ponies'. The technical equivalent of 'Terran' was 'Fimmish'-from the initials of 'Friendship is Magic'-but normally people just used 'Equestrian', even though Equestria was only a part of FiMland.

So. Wow. This was tomorrow. I had the day off, though, and I had to admit it did sound fun. And I had been looking for something to do with Peach outside our apartments. The only thing that made me anxious was the prospect of being one of the only humans in a group of ponies. But as soon as I'd thought it, I grinned. Would that really be so terrible?

I went up to 412 and knocked. It would've felt better if I'd had a bouquet for her or something, but I couldn't bring surprises _all_ the time. Just being there was enough, I hoped.

There was fumbling and clunking fom inside. Then silence. Then there was an open door and a smiling unicorn. "Pepper!"

"Sparky! How'd you know it was me?"

"I used the peephole!" She pointed to it. "But no one else ever visits, anyway, except Seaswell, and he comes to the window! The super came by a couple times, but I think he's satisfied that I'm settled in."

I smiled. "And are you?"

Behind her, I saw what looked something like a fancy erector set, pieces lying everywhere. Girders and bolts and wheels... but I also recognized magnets of various shapes. There was a half-built structure in the middle.

"I'm doing all right," said Peach hopefully. "Want to come in?"

I did. "I just wanted to let you know that I got your note, and I'm totally up for visiting that ranch tomorrow."

She gasped. "Really?!"

Her exuberance was actually a little _too_ much. "Sure! Why so surprised?"

"Well, because that's so nice of you to keep me company! And you've probably got better things to do than learn about Terran ponies."

I shrugged. "Getting fresh air? Going down the shore, more or less? I could go for that." I didn't know if I should mention this next part. "And besides, I'll get to be surrounded by real ponies! How cool is that?" Funny how what's 'real' had shifted so much in just two and a half years.

Peach raised an eyebrow. "That's a bonus for you?"

"Well, of course! It'll be almost like I'm in Equestria."

Peach sat down. Then she stood up and went for her kitchenette. "Do you want something to eat?"

Oops. "Um, sure. Anything you've got would be fine."

"I made spaghetti today! And I've got a spinach salad..."

"That sounds great. Uh... did I upset you just now? Mentioning Equestria?"

She looked over, her magic illuminating the refrigerator door and several objects coming out. "No! No, not at all. I guess I just thought if we were... getting into heavy territory, we might as well be comfortable."

I went to the trusty ottoman and sat down. It was still cluttered, but one side was open, as if it had been waiting for me. "Heavy territory?"

She silently lifted spaghetti from a pan and laid it in a broad china bowl. Salad went in a smaller bowl. I idly wondered whether it was hygenic, lifting someone else's food with magic like that, but I couldn't think why it wouldn't be.

She added forks to each dish and passed them to me. "So," she said. "You wish you could be in Equestria?"

So that was what this was about. "Not for keeps," I decided. "But to visit, absolutely!"

Peach dished herself out smaller portions of salad and spaghetti and sat not far from me, on a cushion. "To be around more ponies?" she asked.

It sounded like she had some beef with me, but I wasn't sure what it was. "That, and to enjoy the different way of life. The controlled weather. The magic in the air."

"Well, you won't get any of that with us tomorrow. Just us. Just the ponies." She spoke matter-of-factly despite the spinach in her mouth.

"That's fine with me. Something wrong with that?"

She frowned and ate for a while in thought. Finally, she broke out with, "You know, it's one thing to try and figure out where you came from. It's another to... lose yourself in fantasies."

I was getting a bit uncomfortable. "I'm sorry?"

Embarrassment came over her. "_I'm_ sorry. I'm assuming too much. I'm just..." She looked down. "I'm still so new here."

I wasn't quite sure what to say next, so I gave her some time. But I thought I understood what Peach was saying, so I decided to ask. "Are you saying I'm romanticizing ponies too much?"

She studied me. "Not exactly. I'm just... I guess I don't really see what you get from us. From my point of view, humans are like kale. Rich and full of nutrients... even if you are a little bitter." She paused to see if I was following. "But ponies? We're like marshmallows. Or candy. Sweet and colorful and... kind of empty."

It was breaking my heart to hear this. "Not even. Don't say that."

She gave her head a meek little shake. "I'm not being self-hating or anything like that. I'm just saying it how I see it."

"You are _not_ empty."

"I'm not talking about myself! I'm talking about... ponies in general!"

"So am I." I actually _had_ been thinking about Peach in particular, but the point stood. "There's so much we can learn from your society! There's so much we can learn from your magic! And that's just scratching the surface."

"Magic that _you gave us!_" she shouted scornfully, rising to her hooves. "Society that works better than yours because _you wanted_ it to!"

"We didn't _give_ you anything!" I retorted, spurred to anger by how ridiculous she was being.

"You might as well have!"

I remembered her using that phrase before, in a similar context. -_You are not children!_ -_We might as well be!_

"What does that mean?" I demanded. "We might as well have?"

She leaned forward and spoke more quietly. "Even if you didn't give _us_ magic, or harmony, you gave it to the fictional world you created. And we're identical to that world."

"But you're _not_ that world!"

"And what does that matter, Ron? We're identical to an imaginary society that reflects your dreams. That means we reflect your dreams. It doesn't matter how we got them!"

"So is there something wrong with wanting to reflect on your dreams?"

"Maybe not, but there's sure something wrong with gazing into a mirror for hours and hours!"

I was dumbfounded. Did she really see things that way? I put my hands in my lap and sat there.

Soon, though, she walked up and put her chin on my shoulder. I inhaled sharply and she drew back. "Sorry, Pepper," she said. "I don't know how we started yelling."

I looked her in the eyes. "You feel pretty strong about this."

"I guess I was just expecting you to tell me why I was wrong," she replied.

I swallowed a lump. "You really think hanging out with ponies isn't good for us... us humans?"

"I don't know, Pepper. We haven't known each other that long. _None_ of us have. Maybe it's the sort of thing that takes a lifetime to actually make a difference."

A question occurred to me then, but instead of asking it, I took a bite of salad. When it didn't leave my thoughts, I asked it. "So I guess you think humans shouldn't marry ponies?"

She stared silently. "Um... I don't know. I honestly don't know, Pepper."

"You don't think there's anything in you that we couldn't have come up with ourselves."

"That's true. You know it's true, don't you?"

I didn't. I shook my head and set aside the rest of my food.

"I don't know what that means, though," she went on. "We may be made from fragments of yourselves. I don't know if that means you can't grow and learn from us. But for me, it's hard to see how."

"We learn from each other," I pointed out, facing her. "People learn from other people. All the time." I swallowed. "I think we even learn from ourselves."

"We learn from our mistakes," Peach argued. "We learn from when we interact with the outside world. That's not the same as learning from ourselves."

"Even so. If I can learn from my own mistakes, and from the other people around me, then I can learn from ponies. How could you even think all this, Peach? Of course we're good for each other. We're the same and we're different and we can help each other." I didn't know how else to say it, but it felt like my argument was obvious.

"Kale and marshmallows," she said, peering at her spinach and spaghetti.

"It takes all kinds," I came back.

She looked at me in surprise. "To do what?"

I gestured aimlessly. "To make a town. To get along. I just can't believe that spending time with ponies could be unhealthy."

She whirled her tail. It was fascinating. I'd never seen her do that before and wondered what it meant. "Maybe it's not. I could be wrong! Anyway, it's only for a day."

I smiled. "Are we done arguing?"

"Yeah, for now."

I picked up my plate and took another bite of spaghetti. "You're pencilling in another argument for tomorrow?"

"Not if you don't want it!"

I let that linger while I finished my food, then walked over and put my dishes by the sink. "And to think when we met, you said you were having trouble making friends," I teased.

"Pepper..." she chided.

"Yeah?"

"You know I wouldn't get into all this if we weren't good friends already."

So that was what it meant to be this pony's friend? Debating all those metaphysical things I'd tried to avoid thinking about? "Yeah, I know."

She levitated her own empty bowls to the sink and set them down. "But if you want out, that's fine." There was just a little hint of pain in her voice. "We don't have to talk about what our species or worlds mean to each other. We can just be a couple of folks."

I considered this. And I remembered that if she hadn't been a pony in the first place, I never would have introduced myself. "I can't do that to you," I decided. "Whatever you want to talk about, Sparky. I'll listen."

She exhaled into a little chuckle. "Thanks," she whispered.

I walked back to the pile of mechanical bits on the floor. "So what's all this?"

Her mood seemed lighter. "It's a magnetics kit! Second Sight loaned it to me last week. You use it to create magnetic fields and do tricks with them."

"Huh, okay! So what can you do with it?"

"Well, I can make an electric generator by loading magnets onto a spinning wheel..." She looked around the pile of parts, sifting through them magically. "Oh, I know what to show you!"

"Oh?"

She floated over a cushion, plopped down, and set to work. A square structure with an unfinished bottom was what she started with; she turned it upside-down and added to it. Eventually, she magically extracted some plastic tubes containing little black objects and emptied their contents into similar tubes in her structure.

"What are those, magnets?" I asked.

"Extremely strong ones," she replied.

I watched her work for a while. It was clear that whatever she was making, she'd made before. I guessed she'd had to disassemble it to use some of the parts for something else. I enjoyed watching her work. It was fascinating to see when she chose to use her magic and when she decided to go with her hooves or teeth, but it was also just nice watching Peach Spark do something she cared about. If ponies really had 'special talents', whatever she was doing was clearly related to hers.

It was getting harder and harder to convince myself I didn't have a crush on her.

After ten minutes, she slid a square metal sheet into a slot with a satisfying click. "All right! It's done."

I was sitting cross-legged by now. "So what are we looking at?"

"Watch and see!" She levitated a little metal wafer carefully into the hole on top and set it on a metal sheet, right in the middle. Then she gestured to a toggle switch on the machine's side. "Go ahead―turn it on!"

I did. There was a cross between a click and a clang. The little wafer floated up about an inch and hovered there... bobbling left, then right. It didn't touch the walls of the machine, or the metal sheet, or anything.

"Whoa! You're not doing that with magic?"

"Do you see my horn glowing?" Peach said smugly.

I sat forward and stared at the floating square through the clear plastic parts of the structure. "That's awesome! It's just magnets holding it up?"

"That's right! And check this out."

She fumbled at a panel of toggle switches. It took her a few tries to flick the tiny switch with her hoof, and I wondered at the fact that she chose to use her hoof for it at all. Maybe she didn't want to dilute the impact of her machine by using magic at the critical moment. Whatever the case, as Peach fumbled with that switch, I found it adorable.

But when she finally caught it with the corner of her hoof, and the rectangle zoomed to one side and banged into the wall, sticking there while still floating above the plate...

That was downright sexy. I was watching an ungulate do advanced magnetics with her hooves! I didn't understand it, but the fact she didn't have any fingers actually made it sexier.

I tried to keep my attention on the floating wafer rather than on the pony behind it. She carefully clipped at another toggle, getting it on the second try, and the wafer sped into a corner, bouncing slightly against the wall as it slid along it.

Then she threw hoofwork to the wind and used magic to work several switches at once. The square went dancing. It was hypnotic in its tiny arena, zooming like a little flying saucer in curves and Z-shapes, occasionally rotating a little but mainly staying aligned with the walls of the machine. I was entranced. It was technology and art at once, on top of an attraction that had hit me out of the blue. I had trouble breathing. I was choking on my wonder.

"Yeeaah," Peach drawled. "That's neat, isn't it?" Her voice was almost sultry.

My head snapped up. I scooted over to Peach's side of the machine and started working the controls. "My turn." I even cracked a hint of a grin when Peach squealed.

Playing around with that floating square was definitely fun, but watching Peach do it was amazing. So I let her take over again and watched patiently. For a while.

Then the urge took me to cooperate―like a pony would, right? I took two of the four switches under my fingertips and assumed control, leaving Peach with the other two.

And that was something else. We laughed distracted, nervous little laughs as we flicked our switches, seizing control of the square and relinquishing it just as suddenly. Peach turned a knob that somehow slowed the wafer down, and we teased each other, pulling it as close as we could to 'our' sides of the cage without letting it touch the edge. Then we cooperated to draw it in a slow, jerky wobble from one side to the other, and then from one corner to the opposite one.

I grabbed a paperclip from the floor and dropped it in. Peach hooted in surprise. I'd imagined us doing battle with the two objects, or using the wafer to knock the paperclip around, but instead, the clip and the wafer snapped together instantly. I guess they were so magnetized they had no choice.

We looked at each other. Then I went for her switches, seizing control and turning everything off, then on again. She batted at my hands with her hooves and fought me with her magic, flicking at my switches in retaliation. Very quickly, we fell into a game in which I was trying to turn off all the switches, letting the wafer and paperclip float freely above the plate, which Peach was trying to turn them all on. We fumbled and fiddled and feinted and twisted around each other for what must have been a very intense thirty seconds, all our victories short-lived but all the more satisfying for it. We were both out of breath when Peach gave a powerful burst of magic, turned on all the switches, and switched off the power while she was ahead. With a sucking sound, the wafer and paperclip clattered to the metal plate, still together.

I sat back and exhaled. I didn't want to listen to it, but a little piece of my mind was telling me that that had been a lot like sex.

We hadn't said a word since the struggle started. Peach laughed breathlessly beside me. I scooted away, doing the same.

Then we looked at each other. "You don't fight a unicorn's magic," she marveled. She'd said the same thing the other day, but then it had been chiding, teasing. Now, I heard the unspoken addendum: _...or so I thought, but wow, was I wrong._

_It doesn't matter what her tone says_, a voice in my head warned me. _When a girl says no, she means no._

_Oh, shut up_, I told my internal voice. I smiled at Peach. "Is that so?"

She was embarrassed. Her mane was out of place, and she straightened it self-consciously. "I have to admit, I didn't expect it to go like_ that_."

"It's more fun when you don't expect it," I said without thinking. Then my brain threw me what felt like the perfect follow-up. "So tell me. Was that kale, or marshmallows?"

Peach looked quickly between me and the machine, caught off guard. She blinked twice.

I sat back, folded my hands, and waited for her to answer.


End file.
